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STATE  NORMAL  SCHOi 
3  aflcaiiHs.  cm*. 


Study  of  Child  Life 


PART   I 


LESSON    PA  PER 

PREPARED    BY 

MARION   FOSTER  WASHBURNE 

ASSOCIATE  EDITOR    "SUCCESS  LIBRARY" 

AUTHOR,   LECTURER 

FORMERLY   INSTRUCTOR  SCHOOL  OF  EDUCATION 

UNIVERSITY  OF   CHICAGO 


/44j*  3 


1904 

American 

School 

of  House 

Ik 

Id  Economics 

CHICAGO 

,  ILLINOIS, 

u. 

S.  A. 

Copyright,  1904,  by 
American  School  of  Household  Economics. 


LB 
I  I  IS 

0\ 


(Copyrighted   E.  A.  Porry.i 

FREIDRICH  FROEBEL 
By  courtesy  of  The  Perry  Pictures  Co.,  Maiden,  Mass. 


STUDY  OP  CHILD  LIFE. 


PART  I, 


'T'HE  young  of  the  human  ■  species  is  less  able  to 
care  for  itself  than  the  young  of  any  other  spe- 
cies. Most  other  creatures  are  able  to  walk,  or  at  any 
rate  stand,  within  a  few  hours  of  birth.  But  the  human 
baby  is  absolutely  dependent  and  helpless,  unable  even 
to  manufacture  all  the  animal  heat  that  he  requires. 
The  study  of  his  condition  at  birth  at  once  suggests 
a  number  of  practical  procedures,  some  of  them  quite 
at  variance  with  the  traditional  procedures. 

HOW  THE  CHILD  DEVELOPS. 

Let  us  see,  then,  exactly  what  his  condition  is.  In 
the  first  place,  he  is,  as  Virchow  an  authority  on  phy- 
siological subjects  declares,  merely  a  spinal  animal. 
Some  of  the  higher  brain  centers  do  not  yet  exist  at 
all,  while  others  are  in  too  incomplete  a  state  for  serv- 
ice. The  various  sensations  which  the  baby  experi- 
ences— heat,  light,  contact,  motion,  etc. — are  so  many 
stimuli  to  the  development  of  these  centers.  If  the 
stimulus  is  too  great,  the  development  is  sometimes 
unduly  hastened,  with  serious  results,  which  show 
themselves  chiefly  in  later  life.  The  child  who  is 
brought  up  in  a  noisy  room,  is  constantly  talked  to 
and  fondled,  is  likely  to  develop  prematurely,  to  talk 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


Weight 
at  Birth 


and  walk  at  an  early  age ;  also  to  fall  into  nervous 
decay  at  an  early  age.  And  even  if  by  reason  of  an 
unusually  good  heredity  he  escapes  these  dangers,  it 
is  almost  certain  that  his  intellectual  power  is  not  po 
great  in  adult  life  as  it  would  have  been  under  more 
favorable  conditions.  A  new  baby,  like  a  young  plant, 
requires  darkness  and  quiet  for  the  most  part.  As 
he  grows  older,  and  shows  a  spontaneous  interest  in 
his  surroundings,  he  may  fittingly  have  more  light, 
more  companionship,  and  experience  more  sensations. 

The  average  boy  baby  weighs  about  seven  pounds 
at  birth  ;  the  average  girl,  about  six  and  a  half  pounds. 
The  head  is  larger  in  proportion  to  the  body  than  in 
after  life ;  the  nose  is  incomplete,  the  legs  short  and 
bowed,  with  a  tendency  to  fall  back  upon  the  body 
with  the  knees  flexed.  This  natural  tendency  should 
be  allowed  full  play,  for  the  flexed  position  is  said  to 
be  favorable  to  the  growth  of  the  bones,  permitting 
the  cartilaginous  ends  of  the  bones  to  lie  free  from 
pressure  at  the  joints. 

The  plates  of  the  skull  are  not  complete  and  do  not 
fit  together  at  the  edges.  Great  care  needs  to  be  taken 
of  the  soft  spot  thus  left  exposed  on  the  top  of  the 
head — the  undeveloped  place  where  the  edges  of  these 
bones  come  together.  Any  injury  here  in  early  life  is 
liable  to  affect  the  mind. 

The  bony  enclosures  of  the  middle  ear  are  unfin- 
ished and  the  eyes  also  are  unfinished.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion yet  to  be  settled,  whether  a  new-born  baby  is  blind 


■{.. 

- 

'    HOW  THE  CHILD  DEVELOPS.  5 

and  deaf  or  not.  At  any  rate,  he  soon  acquires  a 
sensitiveness  to  both  light  and  sound,  although  it  is 
three  years  or  more  before  he  has  amassed  sufficient 
experience  to  estimate  with  accuracy  the  distance  of 
objects  seen  or  heard.  He  can  cry,  suck,  sneeze, 
cough,  kick,  and  hold  on  to  a  finger.  All  of  these  acts, 
though  they  do  not  yet  imply  personality,  or  even 
mind,  give  evidence  of  a  wonderful  organism.  They 
require  the  co-operation  of  many  delicate  nerves  and 
muscles — a  co-operation  that  has  as  yet  baffled  the 
power  of  scientists  to  explain. 

Although  the  young  baby  is  in  almost  constant 
motion  while  he  is  awake,  he  is  altogether  too  weak  to 
turn  himself  in  bed  or  to  escape  from  an  uncomforta- 
ble position,  and  he  remains  so  for  many  weeks.  This 
constant  motion  is  necessary  to  his  muscular  develop- 
ment, his  control  of  his  own  muscles,  his  circulation, 
and,  very  probably,  to  the  free  transmission  of  nerv- 
ous energy.  Therefore,  it  is  of  the  first  importance 
that  he  has  freedom  to  move,  and  he  should  be  given 
time  every  day  to  move  and  stretch  before  the  fire, 
without  clothes  on.  It  is  well  to  rub  his  back  aiioT' 
legs  at  the  same  time,  thus  supplementing  his  gym- 
nastics with  a  gentle  massage. 

By  the  time  he  is  four  or  five  weeks  old  it  is  safe  to 
play  with  him  a  little  every  day,  and  Froebel  has  made      Beginnings 
his  "Play  with  the  Limbs"  one  of  his  first  educational 
exercises.     In  this  play  the  mother  lays  the  baby,  un- 
dressed, upon  a  pillow  and  catches  the  little  ankles  in 


Educational 


First 
Efforts 


6  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LITE. 

her  hands.  Sometimes  she  prevents  the  baby  from 
kicking,  so  that  he  has  to  struggle  to  get  his  legs  free ; 
sometimes  she  helps  him,  so  that  he  kicks  more  freely 
and  regularly ;  sometimes  she  lets  him  push  hard 
against  her  breast.  All  the  time  she  laughs  and  sings 
to  him,  and  Froebel  has  made  a  little  song  for  this 
purpose:.  Since  consciousness  is  roused  and  deepened 
by  sensations,  remembered,  experienced,  and  com- 
pared, it  is  evident  that  this  is  more  than  a  fanciful 
play ;  that  it  is  what  Froebel  claimed  for  it — a  real 
educational  exercise.  By  means  of  it  the  child  may 
gain  some  consciousness  of  companionship,  and  thus, 
by  contrast,  a  deeper  self-consciousness. 

The  baby  is  at  first  unable  to  hold  up  its  head,  and 
in  this  he  is  just  like  all  other  animals,  for  no  animal, 
except  man,  holds  up  its  head  constantly.  The  human 
baby  apparently  makes  the  effort  because  he  desires 
to  see  more  clearly — he  could  doubtless  see  clearly 
enough  for  all  physical  purposes  with  his  head  hung 
down,  but  not  enough  to  satisfy  his  awakening  men- 
tality. The  effort  to  hold  the  head  up  and  to  look 
around  is  therefore  regarded  by  most  psychologists 
as  one  of  the  first  tokens  of  an  awakening  intellectual 
life.  And  this  is  true,  although  the  first  effort  seems 
to  arise  from  an  overplus  of  nervous  energy  which 
makes  the  neck  muscles  contract,  just  as  it  makes 
other  muscles  contract.  The  first  slight  raisings  of  the 
head  are  like  the  first  kicking  movements,  merely  im- 
pulsive ;   but  the  child  soon  sees  the  advantage  of  this 


how  run  child  develops. 

apparently  accidental  movement  and  tries  to  master  it. 
Preyer*  considers  that  the  efforts  to  balance  the  head 
are  among  the  first  indications  that  the  child's  will  is 
taking  ])ossession  of  his  muscles.  His  own  boy  ar- 
rived at  this  point  when  he  was  between  three  and 
four  months  old. 

The  grasp  of  the  new-born  baby's  hand  has  a  sur- 
prising power,  but  the  baby  himself  has  little  to  do 
with  it.  The  muscles  act  because  of  a  stimulus  pre- 
sented by  the  touch  of  the  fingers,  very  much  as  the 
muscles  of  a  decapitated  frog  contract  when  the  cur- 
rent of  electricity  passes  over  them.  This  is  called 
reflex  grasping,  and  Dr.  Louis  Robinson,f  thinking 
that  this  early  strength  of  grasp  was  an  important 
illustration  of  and  evidence  for  evolution,  tried  ex- 
periments on  some  sixty  new-born  babies.  He  found 
that  they  could  sustain  their  whole  weight  by  the 
arms  alone  when'  their  hands  were  clasped  about  a 
slender  rod.  They  grasped  the  rod  at  once  and  could 
be  lifted  from  the  bed  by  it  and  kept  in  this  position 
about  half  a  minute.  He  argued  that  this  early  strength 
of  arm,  which  soon  begins  to  disappear,  was  a  sur- 
vival from  the  remote  period  when  the  baby's  ances- 
tors were  monkeys  or  monkey-like  people  who  lived 
in  trees. 

However  this  may  be,  during  the  first  week  the 
baby's  hands  are  much  about  his  face.     By  accident 

nv.  Prever,  Professor  of  Physiology,  of  Jena,  author  of 
'•The   Mind   of   the   Child."      D.    Appleton   &    Co, 

tDr.  Robinson.  Physician  and  Evolutionist,  paper  in  The 
Eclectic,   Vol.   29. 


Reflex 
Grasping 


Growth 
of    Will 


8  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

they  reach  the  mouth,  they  are  sucked ;  the  child  feels 
himself  suck  its  own  fist;  he  feels  his  fist  being 
sucked.  Some  day  it  will  occur  to  him  that  that  fist 
belongs  to  the  same  being  who  owns  the  sucking 
mouth.  But  at  this  point,  as  Miss  Shinn*  has  ob- 
served, the  baby  is  often  surprised  and  indignant  that 
he  cannot  move  his  arms  around  and  at  the  same  time 
suck  his  fist.  This  discomfort  helps  him  to  make  an 
effort  to  get  his  fist  into  his  mouth  and  keep  it  there, 
and  this  effort  shows  his  will  beginning  to  take  pos- 
session of  his  hands  and  arms. 

Since  any  faculty  grows  by  its  own  exercise,  just 
as  muscles  grow  by  exercise,  every  time  the  baby  suc- 
ceeds in  getting  his  hands  to  his  mouth  as  a  result  of 
desire,  every  time  that  he  succeeds  in  grasping  an 
object  as  a  result  of  desire,  his  will  power  grows. 
Action  of  this  nature  brings  in  new  sensations,  and 
the  brain  centers  used  for  recording  such  sensations 

grow. 

As  the  sensations  multiply,  he  compares  them,  and 
an  idea' is  born.  For  the  beginnings  of  mental  devel- 
opment no  other  mechanism  is  actually  needed  than  a 
brain  and  a  hand  and  the  nerves  connecting  their.. 
Laura  Bridgeman  and  Helen  Keller,  both  of  them 
deaf  and  blind,  received  their  education  almost  entirely 
through  their  hands,  and  yet  they  were  unusually  capa- 
ble of  thinking.  The  child's  hands,  then,  from  the 
beginning,  are  the  servants  of  his  brain — instruments 

♦Miss  Millicent  Shinn,  American  Psychologist,  author  of  "Bi- 
ography of   a  Baby." 


HOW  THE  CHILD  DEVELOPS. 


by  means  of  which  he  carries  impressions  from  the 
outer  world  to  the  seat  of  consciousness,  and  by  which 
in  turn  he  imprints  his  consciousness  upon  the  outer 
world. 

The  average  baby  does  not  begin  to  grasp  objects 
with  intention  before  the  fourth  month.  The  first 
grasping  seems  to  be  done  by  feeling,  without  the  aid 
of  the  eye,  and  is  done  with  the  fingers  with  no  at- 
tempt to  oppose  the  thumb  to  them.  So  closely  does 
the  use  of  the  thumbs  set  opposite  the  fingers  in 
grasping  coincide  with  the  first  grasping  with  the  aid 
of  sight,  that  some  observers  have  been  led  to  be- 
lieve that  as  soon  as  the  baby  learns  to  use  its  thumb 
in  this  way  he  proves  that  he  is  beginning  to  grasp 
with  intention. 

The  order  of  development  seems  to  be,  first,  automa- 
tism, the  muscles  contracting  of  themselves  in  response 
to  nervous  stimuli ;  second,  instinct,  the  inherited  wis- 
dom of  the  race,  which  discovered  ages  ago  that  the 
hand  could  be  used  to  greater  advantage  when  the 
thumb  was  separated  from  the  fingers;  and  thirdly, 
the  child's  own  intelligence  and  will  making  use  of 
this  natural  and  inherited  machinery.  This  order  holds 
true  of  the  development,  not  only  of  the  hand,  but 
of  the  whole  organism. 

A  little  earlier  than  this,  during  the  third  month, 
the  baby  first  looks  upon  his  own  hands  and  notices 
them.  Darwin  tells  us  that  his  boy  looked  at  his  own 
hands  and  seemed  to  study  them  until  his  eyes  crossed. 


Intentional 
Grasping 


Looking 


io  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

About  the  same  time  the  child  notices  his  foot  and  uses 
his  hand  to  carry  it  to  its  mouth.     It  is  some  time  later 
that  he  discovers  that  he  can  move  his  feet  without 
his  hands. 
Tearing  About  this  time,  three  or  four  months  old,  the  child 

begins  to  tear  paper  into  pieces,  and  may  be  easily 
taught  to  let  the  pieces  that  have  found  their  way  into 
his  mouth  be  taken  out  again.  Now,  too,  he  begins 
to  throw  things,  or  to  drop  them ;  then  he  wants  to 
get  them  back  again,  and  the  patient  mother  must  pick 
them  up  and  give  them  back  many  times.  Sometimes 
a  baby  is  punished  for  this  proclivity,  but  it  is  really 
a  part  of  his  development,  and  at  least  once  a  day  he 
should  be  allowed  to  play  in  this  manner  to  his  heart's 
content.  It  is  tact,  not  discipline,  that  is  needed,  and 
the  more  he  is  helped  the  sooner  he  will  live  through 
this  stage  and  come  to  the  next  point  where  he  begins 
to  throw  things. 

In   this    stage,    of    course,    he    must    be    given    the 

Chrowing  o    '  ° 

proper  things  to  throw — small,  bright-colored  worsted 
balls,  bean-bags,  and  other  harmless  objects.  If  he  is 
allowed  to  discover  the  pleasure  there  is  in  smashing 
glass  and  china,  he  will  certainly  be,  for  a  time,  a  very 
destructive  little  person.  When  later  he  is  able  to 
creep — to  throw  his  ball  and  creep  after  it — he  will 
amuse  himself  for  hours  at  a  time,  and  so  relieve  those 
who  have  patiently  attended  him  up  to  this  time.  //; 
general  we  may  lay  clown  the  rule  that  the  more  time 
and  attention   of  the  right  sort  is  given  to  a  young 


HOW  THE  CHILD  DEVELOPS.  u 

child,  the  less  will  need  to  be  given  as  he  grows  older. 
It  is  poor  economy  to  neglect  a  young  child,  and  try 
to  make  it  up  on  the  growing  boy  or  girl.  This  is 
to  substitute  a  complicated  and  difficult  problem  for  a 
simple  one. 

It  is  some  time  before  a  child's  will  can  so  overcome  The 
his  newly-acquired  tendency  to  grasp  every  possible  instincT 
object  that  he  can  keep  his  hands  off  of  anything  that 
invites  him.  The  many  battles  between  mothers  and 
children  on  the  subject  of  not  touching  forbidden 
things  are  at  this  stage  a  genuine  wrong  and  injus- 
tice to  the  child.  So  young  a  child  is  scarcely  more 
responsible  for  touching  whatever  he  can  reach  than 
is  a  piece  of  steel  for  being  drawn  toward  a  powerful 
magnet.  Preyer  says  that  it  is  years  before  voluntary 
inhibitions  of  grasping  become  possible.  The  child 
has  not  the  necessary  brain  machinery.  Commands 
and  spatting  of  the  hands  create  bewilderment  ami 
tend  to  build  up  a  barrier  between  mother  and  child. 
Instead  of  doing  such  things,  simply  put  high  out  of 
reach  and  sight  whatever  the  child  must  not  touch. 

Another  way  in  which  young  children  are  often 
made  to  suffer  because  of  the  ignorance  of  parents  is 
the  leaving  of  undesired  food  on  the  child's  plate. 
Everv  child,  when  he  does  not  want  his  food,  pushes 
the  plate  away  from  him,  and  many  mothers  push  it 
back  and  scold.  The  real  truth  is  that  the  motor  sug- 
gestion of  the  food  upon  the  plate  is  so  strong  that 
the  child  feels  as  if  he  were  being  forced  to  eat  it 


12 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


The    Three 
Months'    Baby 


Danger    of 
Forcing 


Creeping 


every  time  he  looks  at  the  plate ;   to  escape  from  eating 
it  he  is  obliged  to  push  it  out  of  sight. 

But  this  difficulty  comes  later.  Now  we  are  con- 
cerned with  a  three-months-old  baby.  At  this  stage 
the  child  is  usually  able  to  balance  his  head,  to  sit  up 
against  pillows,  to  seize  and  grasp  objects,  and  to 
hold  out  his  arms  when  he  wishes  to  be  taken.  Al- 
though he  may  have  made  a  number  of  efforts  to  sit 
erect,  and  may  have  succeeded  for  a  few  minutes  at  a 
time,  he  still  is  far  from  being  able  to  sit  alone,  unsup- 
ported. This  he  does  not  accomplish  until  the  fifth 
or  sixth  month. 

There  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  trying  to  make 
him  sit  alone  sooner ;  indeed,  there  is  danger  in  it- 
danger  in  forcing  young  bones  and  muscles  to  do 
work  beyond  their  strength,  and  danger  also  to  the 
nerves.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  a  normal  child  always 
exercises  all  its  faculties  to  the  utmost  without  need 
of  urging,  and  any  exercise  beyond  the  point  of  natural 
fatigue,  if  persisted  in,  is  sure  to  bring  about  abnormal 
results. 

The  first  efforts  toward  creeping  often  appear  in  the 
bath  when  the  child  turns  over  and  raises  himself 
upon  his  hands  and  knees.  This  is  a  sign  that  he 
might  creep  sooner,  if  he  were  not  impeded  by  cloth- 
ing. He  should  be  allowed  to  spread  himself  upon  a 
blanket  every  day  for  an  hour  or  two,  and  to  get  on 
his  knees  as  frequently  as  he  pleases.  Often  he  needs 
a  little   help  to  make   him   creep   forward,    for   most 


HOW  THE  CHILD  DEVELOPS.  13 

babies  creep  backward  at  first,  their  arms  being 
stronger  than  their  legs.  Here  the  mother  may  safely 
interfere,  pushing  the  legs  as  they  ought  to  go  and 
showing  the  child  how  to  manage  himself;  for  very 
often  he  becomes  much  excited  over  his  inability  to 
creep  forward. 

The  climbing  instinct  begins  to  appear  by  this  time  climbing 
— the  seventh  month — and  here  the  stair-case  has  its 
great  advantage.  It  ought  not  to  be  shut  from  him 
by  a  gate,  but  he  should  be  taught  how  to  climb  up 
and  down  it  in  safety.  To  do  this,  start  him  at  the 
head  of  the  stairs,  and,  you  yourself  being  below  him, 
draw  first  one  knee  and  then  the  other  over  the  step, 
thus  showing  him  how  to  creep  backward.  Two  les- 
sons of  about  twenty  minutes  each  will  be  sufficient. 
The  only  danger  is  in  creeping  down  head  foremost, 
but  if  he  once  learns  thoroughly  to  go  backward,  and 
has  not  been  allowed  the  other  way  at  all,  he  will  never 
dream  of  trying  it.  In  going  down  backward,  if  he 
should  slip,  he  can  easily  save  himself  by  catching 
the  stairs  with  his  hands  as  he  slips  past. 

The  child  who  creeps  is  often  later  in  his  attempts 
to  walk  than  the  child  who  does  not ;  and,  therefore, 
when  he  is  ready  to  walk,  his  legs  will  be  all  the 
stronger,  and  the  danger  of  bow-legs  will  be  past. 
As  long  as  the  child  remains  satisfied  with  creeping,  he 
is  not  yet  ready  either  mentally  or  physically  for 
walking. 


14 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LITE. 


Standing 


Walking 


Alternate 
Growth 


If  the  child  has  been  allowed  to  creep  about  freely, 
he  will  soon  be  standing.  He  will  pull  himself  to  his 
feet  by  means  of  any  chair,  table,  or  indeed  anything 
that  he  may  get  hold  of.  To  avoid  injuring  him,  no 
flimsy  chairs  or  spindle-legged  tables  should  be  allowed 
in  his  nursery.  He  will  next  begin  to  sidle  around  a 
chair,  shuffling  his  feet  in  a  vague  fashion,  and  some- 
times, needing  both  of  his  hands  to  seize  some  coveted 
object,  he  will  stand  without  clinging,  leaning  on  his 
stomach.  An  unhurried  child  may  remain  at  this 
stage  for  weeks. 

Let  alone,  as  he  should  be,  he  will  walk  without 
knowing  how  he  does  it,  and  will  be  the  stronger  for 
having  overcome  his  difficulties  himself.  He  should 
not  be  coaxed  to  stand  or  walk.  The  things  in  his 
room  actually  urge  him  to  come  and  get  them.  Any 
further  persuasion  is  forced,  and  may  urge  him  be- 
yond his  strength. 

Walking-chairs  and  baby-jumpers  are  injurious  in 
this  respect.  They  keep  the  child  from  his  native  free- 
dom of  sprawling,  climbing,  and  pulling  himself  up. 
The  activity  they  do  permit  is  less  varied  and  helpful 
than  the  normal  activity,  and  the  child,  restricted  from 
the  preparatory  motions,  begins  to  walk  too  soon. 

A  curious  fact  in  the  growth  of  children  is  that  they 
seem  to  grow  heavier  for  a  certain  period,  and  then 
to  grow  taller  for  a  similar  period.  That  is,  a  very 
young  baby,  say,  two  months  old,  will  grow  fatter  for 
about  six  weeks,  and  then  for  the  next  six  weeks  will 


HOW  THE  CHILD  DEVELOPS.  15 

grow  longer,  while  the  child  of  six  years  changes  his 
manner  of  growth  every  three  or  four  months.  These 
periods  are  variable,  or  at  least  their  law  has  not  yet 
been  established,  but  the  observant  mother  can  soon 
make  the  period  out  for  herself  in  the  case  of  Her 
own  child.  For  two  or  three  days,  when  the  manner 
of  growth  seems  to  be  changing  from  breadth  to 
length,  and  vice  versa,  the  children  are  likely  to  be 
unusually  nervous  and  irritable,  and  these  aberrations 
must,  of  course,  be  patiently  borne  with. 

In  all  these  things  some  children  develop  earlier 
than  others,  but  too  early  development  is  to  be  re- 
gretted. Precocious  children  are  always  of  a  delicate 
nervous  organization.  Fiske*  has  proved  to  us  that 
the  reason  why  the  human  young  is  so  far  more  help- 
less and  dependent  than  the  young  of  any  other  species 
is  because  the  activities  of  the  human  race  have  be- 
come so  many,  so  widely  varied,  and  so  complex,  that 
they  could  not  fix  themselves  in  the  nervous  struc- 
ture before  birth.  There  are  only  a  few  things  that 
the  chick  needs  to  know  in  order  to  lead  a  successful 
chicken  life ;  as  a  consequence  these  few  things  are 
well  impressed  upon  the  small  brain  before  ever  he 
chips  the  shell ;  but  the  baby  needs  to  learn  a  great 
many  things — so  many  that  there  is  no  time  or  room 
to  implant  them  before  birth,  or,  indeed,  in  the  few 
years    immediately   succeeding   birth.      To   hurry    the 


Precocity 


*John  Fisko,  writer  on  Evolutionary  Philosophy.  His  theory 
of  infancy  is  perhaps  his  most  important  contribution  to 
science. 


[6 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


Early 
Ripening 


Ample 
Opportunity 
for    Growth 


development,  therefore,  of  certain  few  of  these  facul- 
ties, like  the  faculties  of  talking,  and  walking,  of 
imitation  or  response,  is  to  crowd  out  many  other  fac- 
ulties perhaps  just  beginning  to  grow.  Such  forcing 
will  limit  the  child's  future  development  to  the  few 
faculties  whose  growth  is  thus  early  stimulated.  Pre- 
cocity in  a  child,  therefore,  is  a  thing  to  be  deplored. 
His  early  ripening  foretells  an  early  decay ;  and  a 
wise  mother  is  she  who  gives  her  child  ample  opportu- 
nity for  growing,  but  no  urging. 

Ample  opportunity  for  growth  includes  (i)  Whole- 
some surroundings,  (2)  Sufficient  sleep,  (3)  Proper 
clothing,  (4)  Nourishing  food.  We  will  take  up  these 
topics   in   order. 


WHOLESOME   SURROUNDINGS. 

The  whole  house  in  which  the  child  lives  ought  to 
be  well  warmed  and  equally  well  aired.  Sunlight  also 
is  necessary  to  his  well-being.  If  it  is  impossible  to 
Have  this  in  every  room,  as  sometimes  happens  in  city 
homes,  at  least  the  nursery  must  have  it.  In  the  cen- 
tral States  of  the  Union  plants  and  trees  exposed  to  the 
southern  sun  put  forth  their  leaves  two  weeks  sooner 
than  those  exposed  to  the  north.  The  infant  cannot 
fail  to  profit  by  the  same  condition,  for  the  young 
child  may  be  said  to  lead  in  part  a  vegetative  as  well 
as  an  animal  life ,  and  to  need  air  and  sunshine  and 
warmth  as  much  as  plants  do.  The  very  best  room 
in  the  house  is  not  too  good  for  the  nursery,   for  in 


JOHN  FISKE 


Fresh    Air 


18  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

no  other   room  is   such   important  and  delicate   work 
being"  done. 
Tempera-  The    temperature    is    a   matter   of    importance.      It 

should  not  be  decided  by  guess-work,  but  a  ther- 
mometer should  be  hung  upon  a  wall  at  a  place 
equally  removed  from  draft  and  from  the  source  of 
heat.  The  temperature  for  children  during  the  first 
year  should  be  about  70  degrees  Fahrenheit  during  the 
day  and  not  lower  than  50  degrees  at  night.  Children 
who  sleep  with  the  mother  will  not  be  injured  by  a 
temperature   5  to  20  degrees   lower  at  night. 

It  is  important  to  provide  means  for  the  ingress  of 
fresh  air.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  air  the  room  from 
another  room,  unless  that  other  room  has  in  it  an 
open  window.  Even  then  the  nursery  windows  should 
be  opened  wide  from  fifteen  minutes  to  half  an  hour 
night  and  morning,  while  the  child  is  in  another  room ; 
and  this  even  when  the  weather  is  at  zero  or  below. 
It  does  not  take  long  to  warm  up  a  room  that  has 
been  aired.  Perhaps  the  best  means  of  obtaining  the 
ingress  of  fresh  air  without  creating  a  draft  upon 
the  floor,  where  the  baby  spends  so  much  of  his  time, 
is  to  raise  the  window  six  inches  at  the  top  or  bot- 
tom and  insert  a  board  cut  to  fit  the  aperture. 

Tint  no  matter  how  well  ventilated  the  nursery  may 
be,  all  children  more  than  six  weeks  old  need  unmodi- 
fi<  d  outside  air,  and  need  it  every  day,  no  matter 
what  the  weather,  unless  they  are  sick. 


Daily 


SLEEP.  19 

The  daily  outing-  secures  them  better  appetites,  quiet 
sleep,  and  calmer  nerves.  Let  them  be  properly  clothed 
and  protected  in  their  carriages,  and  all  weathers  are 
good  for  them. 

Children  who  take  their  naps  in  their  baby-carriages 
may  with  advantage  be  wheeled  into  a  sheltered  spot, 
covered  warmly,  and  left  to  sleep  in  the  outer  air. 
They  are  likely  to  sleep  longer  than  in  the  house,  and 
find  more  refreshment  in  their  sleep. 

STTFFICIENT   SLEEP. 

Few  children  in  America  get  as  much  sleep  as  they 
really  need.  Preyer  gives  the  record  of  his  own  child, 
and  the  hours  which  this  child  found  necessary  for 
his  sleep  and  growth  may  be  taken  for  a  standard.  In 
the  first  month,  sixteen,  in  full,  out  of  twenty-four 
hours  were  spent  in  sleep.  The  sleep  rarely  lasted 
beyond  two  hours  at  a  time.  In  the  second  month 
about  the  same  amount  was  spent  in  sleep,  which  lasted 
from  three  to  six  hours  at  a  time.  In  the  sixth  month, 
it  lasted  from  six  to  eight  hours  at  a  time,  and  began 
to  diminish  to  fifteen  hours  in  the  twenty-four.  In 
the  thirteenth  month,  fourteen  hours'  sleep  daily;  in 
the  seventeenth,  prolonged  sleep  began,  ten  hours 
without  interruption  ;  in  the  twentieth,  prolonged  sleep 
became  habitual,  and  sleep  in  the  day-time  was  re- 
duced to  two  hours.  In  the  third  year,  the  night  sleep 
lasted  regularly  from  eleven  to  twelve  hours,  and 
sleep  in  the  daytime  was  no  longer  required. 


Naps 


20  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

Preyer's  record  stops  here.  But  it  may  be  added 
that  children  from  three  to  eight  years  still  require 
eleven  hours'  sleep  ;  and,  although  the  child  of  three 
may  not  need  a  daily  nap,  it  is  well  for  him,  until  he 
is  six  rears  old,  to  lie  still  for  an  hour  in  the  middle 
of  the  day,  amusing  himself  with  a  picture  book  or 
paper  and  pencil,  but  not  played  with  or  talked  to  by 
any  other  person.  Such  a  rest  in  the  middle  of  the 
day  favors  the  relaxation  of  muscles  and  nerves  and 
breaks  the  strain  of  a  long  day  of  intense  activity. 

PROPER     CLOTHING. 

Proper  clothing  for  a  child  includes  three  things: 
(a)  Equal  distribution  of  warmth,  (b)  Freedom  from 
restraint,   (c)   Light  weight. 

Equal  distribution  of  warmth  is  of  great  impor- 
tance, and  is  seldom  attained.  The  ordinary  dress  for 
a  young  baby,  for  example,  leaves  the  arms  and  the 
upper  part  of  the  chest  unprotected  by  more  than  one 
thickness  of  flannel  and  one  of  cotton — the  shirt  and 
the  dress.  About  the  child's  middle,  on  the  contrary, 
there  are  two  thicknesses  of  flannel — a  shirt  and  band 
— and  five  of  cotton,  i.  e.,  the  double  bands  of  the 
white  and  flannel  petticoats,  and  the  dress.  Over  the 
legs,  again,  are  two  thicknesses  of  flannel  and  two  of 
cotton,  i.  e.,  the  pinning  blanket,  flannel  skirt,  white 
skirt,  and  dress.  The  child  in  a  comfortably  warm 
house  needs  two  thicknesses  of  flannel  and  one  of  cot- 
ton all  over  it,  and  no  more. 


CLOTHING. 


21 


The  practice  of  putting  extra  wrappings  about  the 
abdomen  is  responsible  for  undue  tenderness  of  those 
organs.  Dr.  Grosvenor,  of  Chicago,  who  designed  a 
model  costume  for  a  baby,  which  he  called  the  Ger- 
trude suit,  says  that  many  cases  of  rupture  are  due 
to  bandaging  of  the  abdomen.  When  the  child  cries 
the  abdominal  walls  normally  expand ;  if  they  are 
tightly  bound,  they  cannot  do  this,  and  the  pressure 
upon  one  single  part,  which  the  bandages  may  not  hold 
quite  firmly,  becomes  overwhelming,  and  results  in 
rupture.  Dr.  Grosvenor  also  thinks  that  many  cases 
of  weak  lungs,  and  even  of  consumption  in  later  life, 
are  due  to  the  tight  bands  of  the  skirts  pressing  upon 
the  soft  ribs  of  the  young  child,  and  narrowing  the 
lung  space. 

Freedom  from  restraint.  Not  only  should  the 
clothes  not  bind  the  child's  body  in  any  way,  but  they 
should  not  be  so  long  as  to  prevent  free  exercise  of 
the  legs.  The  pinning-blankct  is  objectionable  on  this 
account.  If  is  difficult  for  the  child  to  kick  in  it ; 
and  as  we  nave  seen  before,  kicking  is  necessary  to 
the  proper  development  of  the  legs.  Undue  length  of 
skirt  operates  in  the  same  way — the  weight  of  cloth 
is  a  check  upon  activity.  The  first  garment  of  a  young 
baby  should  not  be  more  than  a  yard  in  length  from 
the  neck  to  the  bottom  of  the  hem,  and  three-quarters 
of  a  yard  is  enough  for  the  inner  garment. 

The  sleeves,  too,  should  be  large  and  loose,  and  the 
arm-size  should  be  roomy,  so  as  to  prevent  chafing. 


The 

Gertrude 

Suit 


Objection 
to    the 
Pinning 
Blanket 


22  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LITE. 

The  sleeves  may  be  tied  in  at  the  wrist  with  a  ribbon 

to  insure  warmth. 

Lightness  of  weight.  The  underclothing  should  be 
made  of  pure  wool,  so  as  to  gain  the  greatest  amount 
of  warmth  from  the  least  weight.  In  the  few  cases 
where  wool  would  cause  irritation,  a  silk  and  wool 
mixture  makes  a  softer  but  more  expensive  garment. 
Under  the  best  conditions,  clothes  restrict  and  impede 
free  development  somewhat,  and  the  heavier  they  are 
the  more  they  impede  it.  Therefore,  the  effort  should 
be  to  get  the  greatest  amount  of  warmth  with  the  least 
possible  weight.  Knit  garments  attain  this  most  per- 
fectly, but  the  next  best  thing  is  all-wool  flannel  of  a 
line  grade.  The  weave  known  as  stockinet  is  best  of 
all.  because  goods  thus  made  cling  to  the  body  and  yet 
restrict  its  activity  very  little. 

The  best  garments  for  a  baby  are  made  according  to 
the  accompanying  diagram . 

They  consist  of  three  garments,  to  be  worn  one 
over  the  other,  each  one  an  inch  longer  in  every  way 
than  the  underlying  one.  The  first  is  a  princess  gar- 
ment, made  of  white  stockinet,  which  takes  the  place 
of  skirt,  pinning-blanket,  and  band.  Before  cutting 
this  out,  a  box-pleat  an  inch  and  a  half  wide  should 
be  laid  down  the  middle  of  the  front,  and  a  side  pleat 
three-fourths  of  an  inch  wide  on  either  side  of  the 
placket  in  the  back.  The  sleeve  should  have  a  tuck  an 
inch  wide.  These  tucks  and  pleats  are  better  run  in 
by  hand,  so  that  they  ma}'  be  easily  ripped.     As  the 


CLOTH  IXC. 


23 


baby  grows  and  the  flannel   shrinks,   these  tucks  and 
pleats  can  be  let  ont. 

The  next  garment,  which  goes  over  this,  is  made  in 


4+fr*4iJlAM    OF    THE    "GERTRUDE"    SUIT. 


the  same  way,  only  an  inch  larger  in  every  measure- 
ment.    It  is  made  of  baby  flannel,  and  takes  the  place 


24  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

of  the  flannel  petticoat  with  its  cotton  band.  Over 
these  two  garments  any  ordinary  dress  may  be  worn. 
Dressed  in  this  suit,  the  child  is  evenly  covered  with 
two  thicknesses  of  flannel  and  one  of  cotton.  As  the 
skirts  are  rather  short,  however,  and  he  is  expected  to 
move  his  legs  about  freely,  he  may  well  wear  long 
white  wool  stockings. 

As  the  child  grows  older,  the  principles  underlying 
this  method  of  clothing  should  be  borne  in  mind,  and 
clothes  should  be  designed  and  adapted  so  as  to  meet 
these  three  requirements. 

FOOD. 

Natural  The  natural  food  of  a  young  baby  is  his  mother's 

Food  milk/  and  no  satisfactory  substitute  for  it  has  yet  been 
found.  Some  manufactured  baby  foods  do  well  for 
certain  children ;  to  others  they  are  almost  poison ; 
and  for  none  of  them  are  they  sufficient.  The  milk 
of  the  cow  is  not  designed  for  the  human  infant.  It 
contains  too  much  casein,  and  is  too  difficult  of  diges- 
tion. Various  preparations  of  milk  and  grains  are  rec- 
ommended by  nurses  and  physicians,  but  no  conscien- 
tious nurse  or  physician  pretends  that  any  of  them 
begins  to  equal  the  nutritive  value  of  human  milk. 
More  women  can  nurse  their  babies  than  now  think 
they  can ;  the  advertisements  of  patent  foods  lead 
them  to  think  the  matter  of  little  importance,  and 
they  do  not  make  the  necessary  effort  to  preserve  and 
increase  the  natural  supply  of  milk.    The  family  phy- 


FOOD.  25 

sician  can  almost  always  better  the  condition  of  the  Bottie-fed 
mother  who  really  desires  to  nurse  her  own  child,  and 
he  should  be  consulted  and  his  directions  obeyed.  The 
importance  of  a  really  great  effort  in  this  direction  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  the  physical  culture  records, 
now  so  carefully  kept  in  many  of  our  schools  and  col- 
leges, prove  that  bottle-fed  babies  are  more  likely  to 
be  of  small  stature,  and  to  have  deficient  bones,  teeth 
and  hair,  than  children  who  have  been  fed  on  mother's 
milk. 

The  food  question  is  undoubtedly  the  most  impor-  simple 
tant  problem  to  the  physical  welfare  of  the  child,  and 
has,  as  well,  a  most  profound  effect  upon  his  disposi- 
tion and  character.  '  Indiscriminate  feeding  is  the  cause 
of  much  of  the  trouble  and  worry  of  mothers.  This 
subject  is  taken  up  at  length  in  other  papers  of  this 
course,  and  it  will  suffice  to  say  here  that  the  table  of 
the  family  with  young  children  should  be  regulated 
largely  by  the  needs  of  the  growing  sons  and  daugh- 
ters. The  simplified  diet  necessary  may  well  be  of 
benefit  to  other  members  of  the  family. 


Diet 


FAULTS  AND  THEIR  REMEDIES. 

The  child  born  of  perfect  parents,  brought  up  per- 
fectly, in  a  perfect  environment,  would  probably  have 
no  faults.  Even  such  a  child,  however,  would  be  at 
times  inconvenient,  and  would  do  and  say  things  at 
variance  with  the  order  of  the  adult  world.  Therefore 
he  might  seem  to  a  hasty,  prejudiced  observer  to  bt 
naughty.  And,  indeed,  imperfectly  born,  imperfectly 
trained  as  children  now  are,  many  of  their  so-called 
faults  are  no  more  than  such  inconvenient  crossings 
of  an  immature  will  with  an  adult  will. 

No  grown  person,  for  instance,*  likes  to  be  inter- 
rupted, and  is  likely  to  regard  the  child  who  inter- 
rupts him  :  ■  wilfully  naughty.  No  young  child,  on 
the  contrary,  objects  to  being  interrupted  in  his  speech, 
though  he  may  object  to  being  interrupted  in  his  play; 
and  he  cannot  understand  why  an  adult  should  set 
so  much  store  on  the  quiet  listening  which  is  so  infre- 
quent in  his  own  experience.  Grown  persons  object  to 
noise  ;  children  delight  in  it.  Grown  persons  like  to 
have  things  kept  in  their  places ;  to  a  child,  one  place 
is  as  good  as  another.  Grown  persons  have  a  preju- 
dice in  favor  of  cleanliness  ;  children  like  to  swim,  but 
hate  to  wash,  and  have  no  objections  whatever  to 
grimy  hands  and  faces.  None  of  these  things  imply 
the  least  degree  of  obliquity  on  the  child's  part;  and 
yet  it  is  safe  to  say  that  nine-tenths  of  the  children 


JEAN  PADL  RICIITER 


28 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


Real 
Faults 


who  are  punished  are  punished  for  some  of  these 
tilings.  The  remedy  for  these  inconveniences  is  time 
and  patience.  The  child,  if  left  to  himself,  without  a 
word  of  admonishment,  would  probably  change  his 
conduct  in  these  respects,  merely  by  the  force  of  imi- 
tation, provided  that  the  adults  around  him  set  him 
a  persistent  example  of  courtesy,  gentleness,  and  clean- 
liness. 

The  faults  that  are  real  faults,  as  Richter*  says,  are 
those  faults  which  increase  with  age.  These  it  is  that 
need  attention  rather  than  those  that  disappear  of 
themselves  as  the  child  grows  older.  This  rule  ought 
to  be  put  in  large  letters,  that  every  one  who  has  to 
train  children  may  be  daily  reminded  by  it ;  and  not 
exercise  his  soul  and  spend  his  force  in  trying  to  over- 
come little  things  which  may  perhaps  be  objectionable, 
but  which  will  vanish  to-morrow.  Concentrate  your 
energies  on  the  overcoming  of  such  tendencies  as  may 
in  time  develop  into  permanent  evils. 

To  accomplish  this,  you  must,  of  course,  train  the 
child's  own  will,  because  no  one  can  force  another 
person  into  virtue  against  his  will.  The  chief  object 
of  all  training  is,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  section, 
to  lead  the  child  to  love  righteousness,  to  prefer  right 
doing  to  wrong  doing;  to  make  right  doing  a  perma- 
nent desire.     Therefore,  in   all   the  procedures   about 


*J*nn  Paul  Richter,  "Der  einsige."  German  writer  and 
philosopher.  His  rather  whimsical  and  fragmentary  book  on 
education,  called  "Levana,"  contains  some  rare  scraps  of  wis- 
dom   much    used   by    later   writers   on   educational    topics. 


FAULTS  AND   THEIR  REMEDIES. 


29 


to  be  suggested,  an  effort  is  made  to  convince  the 
child  of  the  ugliness  and  painfulness  of  wrong  doing. 

Punishment,  as  Herbert  Spencer*  agrees  with  Froe- 
belf  in  pointing  out,  should  be  as  nearly  as  possible  a 
representation  of  the  natural  result  of  the  child's 
action  ;  that  is,  the  fault  should  be  made  to  punish 
itself  as  much  as  possible  without  the  interference  of 
any  outside  person;  for  the  object  is  not  to  make  the 
child  bend  his  will  to  the  will  of  another,  but  to  make 
him  see  the  fault  itself  as  an  undesirable  thing. 

The  effort  to  break  the  child's  will  has  long  been 
recognized  as  disastrous  by  all  educators.  A  broken 
will  is  a  worse  misfortune  than  a  broken  back.  In 
the  latter  case  the  man  is  physically  crippled ;  in  the 
former,  he  is  morally  crippled.  It  is  only  a  strong, 
unbroken,  persistent  will  that  is  adequate  to  achieve 
self-mastery,  and  mastery  of  the  difficulties  of  life. 
The  child  who  is  too  yielding  and  obedient  in  his  early 
davs  is  only  too  likely  to  be  weak  and  incompetent  in 
his  later  days.  The  habit  of  submission  to  a  more 
mature  judgment  is  a  bad  habit  to  insist  upon.  The 
child  should  be  encouraged  to  think  out  things  for 
himself;  to  experiment  and  discover  for  himself  why 
his  ideas  do  not  work ;  and  to  refuse  to  give  them  up 
until  he  is  genuinely  convinced  of  their  impractica- 
bility. 


♦Herbert  Spencer,  English  Philosopher  and  Scientist.  His 
book   on    "Education"  is   sound    and   practical. 

+Freidrieh  Froebel,  German  Philosopher  and  Educator, 
founder  of  the  Kindergarten  system,  and  inaugurator  of  the 
new  education.  His  two  great  books  are  "The  Education  of 
Man"    and    "The   Mother   Play." 


Natural 
Punishment 


Breaking 
the   Will 


30  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

Emergencies  It  is  true  that  there  are  emergencies  in  which  his 

immature  judgment  and  undisciplined  will  must  yield 
to  wiser  judgment  and  steadier  will;  hut  such  yield- 
ing should  not  be  suffered  to  become  habitual.  It  is  a 
safety  valve  merely,  to  be  employed  only  when  the 
pressure  of  circumstances  threatens  to  become  danger- 
ous. An  engine  whose  safety  valve  should  be  always 
in  operation  could  never  generate  much  power.  Nor 
is  there  much  difficulty  in  leading  even  a  very  strong- 
willed  and  obstinate  child  to  give  up  his  own  way 
under  extraordinary  circumstances.  If  he  is  not  in 
the  habit  of  setting  up  his  own  will  against  that  of  his 
mother  or  teacher,  he  will  not  set  it  up  when  the  quick, 
unfamiliar  word  of  command  seems  to  fit  in  with  the 
unusual  circumstances.  Many  parents  practice  cry- 
ing "Wolf!  wolf!"  to  their  children,  and  call  the 
practice  a  drill  of  self-control ;  but  they  meet  inevitably 
with  the  familiar  consequences :  when  the  real  wolf 
comes  the  hackneyed  cry,  often  proved  false,  is  dis- 
regarded. 

When  the  will  is  rightly  trained,  disobedience  is  a 
fault  that  rarely  appears,  because,  of  course,  where 
obedience  is  seldom  required,  it  is  seldom  refused. 
The  child  needs  to  obey — that  is  true ;  but  so  does 
Ins  mother  need  to  obey,  and  all  other  persons  about 
him.  They  all  need  to  obey  God,  to  obey  the  laws  of 
nature,  the  impulses  of  kindness,  and  to  follow  after 
the  ways  of  wisdom.  Where  such  obedience  is  a  set- 
tled habit  of  the  entire  household,  it  easily,  and,  as 


M||HHBHHHMBHHHn9HIMHB| 


HERBERT    SPENCER 


32  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

it  were,  unconsciously,  becomes  the  habit  of  the  child. 
Where  such  obedience  is  not  the  habit  of  the  house- 
hold, it  is  only  with  great  difficulty  that  it  can  become 
the  habit  of  the  child.  His  will  must  set  itself 
against  its  instinct  of  imitativeness,  and  his  small 
house,  not  yet  quite  built,  must  be  divided  against 
itself.  Probably  no  child  ever  rendered  entire  obe- 
dience to  any  adult  who  did  not  himself  hold 
his  own  wishes  in  subjection.  As  Emerson  says: 
"In  dealing  with  my  child,  my  Latin  and  my  Greek, 
my  accomplishments  and  my  money,  stead  me 
nothing,  but  as  much  soul  as  I  have  avails.  If  I  am 
willful,  he  sets  his  will  against  mine,  one  for  one,  and 
leaves  me,  if  I  please,  the  degradation  of  beating  him 
by  my  superiority  of  strength.  But,  if  I  renounce  my 
will  and  act  for  the  soul,  setting  that  up  as  an  umpire 
between  us  two,  out  of  his  young  eyes  looks  the  same 
soul ;   he  reveres  and  loves  with  me." 

Suppose  the  child  to  be  brought  to  such  a  stage 
Goodness  tjiat  jie  js  wiUing  to  do  anything  his  father  or  moth- 
er savs ;  suppose,  even,  that  they  never  tell  him 
to  do  anything  that  he  does  not  afterwards 
discover  to  be  reasonable  and  just;  still,  what  has  he 
gained  ?  For  twenty  years  he  has  not  had  the  respon- 
sibility for  a  single  action,  for  a  single  decision,  right 
or  wrong.  What  is  permitted  is  right  to  him  ;  what 
is  forbidden  is  wrong.  When  he  goes  out  into  the 
world  without  his  parents,  what  will  happen  ?  At  the 
best  he  will  not  lie,  or  steal,  or  commit  murder.     That 


Negative 


FAULTS  AND   THEIR   REMEDIES.  33 

is,  he  will   do  none  of  these  things  in  their  bald  and 
simple   form. 

But  in  their  beginnings  these  are  hidden  under  a 
mask  of  virtue  and  he  has  never  been  trained  to  look 
beneath  that  mask  ;  as  happened  to  Richard  Feveril/ 
sin  may  spring  upon  him  unaware.  Some  one  else, 
all  his  life,  has  labeled  things  for  him ;  he  is  not  in 
the  habit  of  judging  for  himself.  He  is  blind,  deaf, 
and  helpless — a  plaything  of  circumstances.  It  is  a 
chance  whether  he  falls  into  sin  or  remains  blameless. 

Disobedience,  then,  in  a  true  sense,  does  not  mean  Real 
failure  to  do  as  he  is  told  to  do.  It  means  failure  to  »isobedie"^ 
do  the  things  that  he  knows  to  be  right.  He  must  be 
taught  to  listen  and  obey  the  voice  of  his  own  con- 
science ;  and  if  that  voice  should  ever  speak,  as  it 
sometimes  does,  differently  from  the  voice  of  the  con- 
science of  his  parents  or  teachers,  its  dictates  must  still 
be  respected  by  these  older  and  wiser  persons,  and  he 
must  be  permitted  to  do  this  thing  which  in  itself  may 
be  foolish,  but  which  is  not  foolish  to  him. 

And.  on  the  other  hand,  the  child  who  will  have  his  Liberty 
own  way  even  when  he  knows  it  to  be  wrong  should 
be  allowed  to  have  it  within  reasonable  limits.  Richter 
says,  leave  to  him  the  sorry  victory,  only  exercising  suf- 
ficient ingenuity  to  make  sure  that  it  is  a  sorry  one. 
What  he  must  be  taught  is  that  it  is  not  at  all  a  pleasure 
to  have  his  own  way,  unless  his  own  way  happens  to  be 
right ;  and  this  he  can  only  be  taught  by  having  his  own 
way  when  the  results  are  plainly  disastrous.   Every  time 


*"The  Ordeal   of  Richard  Feveril,"   by  George  Meredith. 


Punish- 
ment 


34  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

that  a  willful  child   does   what  he  wants  to  do,  and 
suffers  sharply  for  it,  he  learns  a  lesson  that  nothing 
hut  this  experience  can  teach  him. 
Self.  But  his  suffering  must  be  plainly  seen  to  be  the  re- 

sult of  his  deed,  and  not  the  result  of  his  mother's 
anger.  For  example,  a  very  young  child  who  is  deter- 
mined to  play  with  fire  may  be  allowed  to  touch  the 
hot  lamp  or  a  stove,  whenever  affairs  can  be  so  ar- 
ranged that  he  is  not  likely  to  burn  himself  too  se- 
verely. One  such  lesson  is  worth  all  the  hand-spat- 
tings  and  cries  of  "No,  no !"  ever  resorted  to  by 
anxious  parents.  If  he  pulls  down  the  blocks  that 
you  have  built  up  for  him,  they  should  stay  down, 
while  you  get  out  of  the  room,  if  possible,  in  order 
to  evade  all  responsibility  for  that  unpleasant  result. 

Prohibitions  are  almost  useless.  In  order  to  con- 
vince yourself  of  this,  get  some  one  to  command  you 
not  to  move  your  right  arm,  or  to  wink  your  eye.  You 
will  find  it  almost  impossible  to  obey  for  even  a  few 
moments.  The  desire  to  move  your  arm,  which  was 
not  at  all  conscious  before,  will  become  overpowering. 
The  prohibition  acts  like  a  suggestion,  and  is  an  impli- 
cation that  you  would  do  the  negative  act  unless  you 
were  commanded  not  to.  Miss  Alcott,  in  "Little  Men," 
well  illustrates  this  fact  in  the  story  of  the  children 
who  were  told  not  to  put  beans  up  their  noses,  and 
who  straightway  filled  their  noses  with  beans. 

As  we  shall  see  in  the  next  section,  Froebel  meets 
this  difficulty  by  substituting  positive  commands  for 


FAULTS  JXD   THEIR  REMEDIES. 


35 


prohibitions ;  that  is,  he  tells  the  child  to  do  instead  of 
telling  him  not  to  do.  Tiedemann*  says  that  example 
is  the  first  great  evolutionary  teacher,  and  liberty  is 
the  second.  In  the  overcoming  of  disobedience,  no 
other  teachers  are  needed.  The  method  may  be 
tedious ;  it  may  be  many  years  before  the  erratic  will 
is  finally  led  to  work  in  orderly  channels  ;  but  there 
is  no  possibility  of  abridging  the  process.  There  is 
no  short  and  sudden  cure  for  disobedience,  and  the 
only  hope  for  final  cure  is  the  steady  working  of  these 
two  great  forces,  example  and  liberty. 

To  illustrate  the  principles  already  indicated,  we 
will  consider  some  specific  problems  together  with  sug- 
gestive treatment  for  each. 

QUICK    TEMPER. 

This,  as  well  as  irritability  and  nervousness,  very 
often  springs  from  a  wrong  physical  condition.  The 
digestion  may  be  bad,  or  the  child  may  be  overstim- 
ulated.  He  may  not  be  sleeping  enough,  or  may  not 
get  enough  outdoor  air  and  exercise.  In  some  cases 
the  fault  appears  because  the  child  lacks  the  discipline 
of  young  companionship.  Even  the  most  exemplary 
adult  cannot  make  up  to  the  child  for  the  influence  of 
other  children.  He  perceives  the  difference  between 
himself  and  these  giants  about  him,  and  the  percep- 
tion sometimes  makes  him  furious.  His  struggling 
individuality  finds  it  difficult  to  maintain  itself  under 
the  pressure  of  so  many  stronger  personalities.     He 


Positive 
Commands 


Cause    of 
Temper 


*Tiedemann,    German  Psychologist. 


36  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

makes,  therefore,  spasmodic  and  violent  attempts  of 
self-assertion,  and  these  attempts  go  under  the  name 
of  fits  of  temper. 

The  child  who  is  not  ordinarily  strong  enough  to 
assert  himself  effectively  will  work  himself  up  into  a 
passion  in  order  to  gain  strength,  much  as  men  some- 
times stimulate  their  ccurage  by  liquor.  In  fact,  pas- 
sion is  a  sort  of  moral  intoxication. 
Remedy—  But    whether    the    fits    of   passion    are    physical    or 

and°auiet  moral,  the  immediate  remedy  is  the  same — his  environ- 
ment must  be  promptly  changed  and  his  audience  re- 
moved. He  needs  solitude  and  quiet.  This  does  not 
mean  shutting  him  into  a  closet,  but  leaving  him  alone 
in  a  quiet  room,  with  plenty  of  pleasant  things  about. 
This  gives  an  opportunity  for  the  disturbed  organism 
to  right  itself,  and  for  the  will  to  recover  its  normal 
tone.  Some  occupation  should  be  at  hand — blocks  or 
ether  toys,  if  he  is  too  young  to  read ;  a  good  book  or 
two,  such  as  Miss  Alcott's  "Little  Men"  and  "Little 
Women,"  when  he  is  old  enough  to  read. 

If  he  is  destructive  in  his  passion,  he  must  be  put 
in  a  room  where  there  are  very  few  breakables  to 
tempt  him.  If  he  does  break  anything  he  must  be 
required  to  help  mend  it  again.  To  shout  a  threat  to 
this  effect  through  the  door  when  the  storm  of  temper 
is  still  on,  is  only  to  goad  him  into  fresh  acts  of  re- 
bellion. Let  him  alone  while  he  is  in  this  temporarily 
insane  state,  and  later,  when  he  is  sorry  and  wants  to 
be    good,    help   him    to   repair    the    mischief   he    has 


QUICK  TEMPER.  37 

wrought.  It  is  as  foolish  to  argue  with  or  to  threaten 
the  child  in  this  state  as  it  would  be  were  he  a  patient 
in  a  lunatic  asylum. 

It  is  sometimes  impossible  to  get  an  older  child  to 
go  into  retreat.  Then,  since  he  cannot  be  carried,  and 
he  is  not  open  to  remonstrance  or  commands,  go  out 
of  the  room  yourself  and  leave  him  alone  there.  At 
any  cost,  loneliness  and  quiet  must  be  brought  to 
bear  upon  him. 

Such  outbursts  are  exceedingly  exhausting,  using 
up  in  a  few  minutes  as  much  energy  as  would  suf- 
fice for  many  days  of  ordinary  activity.  After  the 
attack  the  child  needs  rest,  even  sleep,  and  usually 
seeks  it  himself.     The   desire  should  be  encouraged. 

Every  reasonable  precaution  should  be  taken  against 
the  recurrence  of  the  attacks,  for  every  lapse  into  this 
excited  state  makes  more  certain  the  next  lapse  and 
weakens  the  nervous  control.  This  does  not  mean 
that  you  should  give  up  any  necessary  or  right  regu- 
lations for  fear  of  the  child's  temper.  If  the  child 
sees  that  you  do  this,  he  will  on  occasion  deliberately 
work  himself  up  into  a  passion  in  order  to  get  his 
own  wav.  But  while  you  do  not  relax  any  just  regu- 
lations, you  may  safely  help  him  to  meet  them.  Give 
him  warning.  For  instance,  do  not  spring  any  dis- 
agreeable commands  upon  him.  Have  his  duties  as 
systematized  as  possible  so  that  he  may  know  what 
to  expect;  and  do  not  under  any  circumstances  nag 
him  nor  allow  other  children  to  tease  him. 


38  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

SULLENNESS. 

This  fault  likewise  often  has  a  physical  cause,  seated 
very  frequently  in  the  liver.  See  that  the  child's 
food  is  not  too  heavy.  Give  him  much  fruit,  and  in- 
sist upon  vigorous  exercise  out  of  doors.  Or  he  may 
perhaps  not  have  enough  childish  pleasures.  For 
while  most  children  are  overstimulated,  there  still 
remain  some  children  whose  lives  are  unduly  color- 
less and  eventless.  A  sullen  child  is  below  the  normal 
level  of  responsiveness.  He  needs  to  be  roused,  wak- 
ened, lifted  out  of  himself,  and  made  to  take  an  active 
interest  in  other  persons  and  in  the  outside  world 

In  many  cases  sullenness  is  an  inherited  disposition 
intensified  by  example.  It  is  unchildlike  and  morbid 
to  an  unusual  degree  and  very  difficult  to  cure.  The 
mother  of  a  sullen  child  may  well  look  to  her  own 
conduct  and  examine  with  a  searching  eye  the  pecu- 
liarities of  her  own  family  and  of  her  husband's.  She 
may  then  find  the  cause  of  the  evil,  and  by  removing 
the  child  from  the  bad  example  and  seeing  to  it  that 
every  day  contains  a  number  of  childish  pleasures, 
she  may  win  him  away  from  a  fault  that  will  other- 
wise cloud  his  whole  life. 

LYING. 

All  lies  are  not  bad,  nor  all  liars  immoral.  A  young 
child  who  cannot  yet  understand  the  obligations  of 
truthfulness  cannot  be  held  morally  accountable  for 
his   departure   from  truth.     Lying  is  ol   three  kinds. 


LYING. 


39 


(i.)      The   imaginative   lie.      (2.)      The    evasive   lie. 
(3.)     The  politic  lie. 

(1.)  It  is  rather  hard  to  call  the  imaginative  lie 
a  lie  at  all.  It  is  so  closely  related  to  the  creative  in- 
stinct which  makes  the  poet  and  novelist  and  which, 
common  among  the  peasantry  of  a  nation,  is  respon- 
sible for  folk-lore  and  mythology,  that  it  is  rather  an 
intellectual  activity  misdirected  than  a  moral  obliquity. 
Very  imaginative  children  often  do  not  know  the  dif- 
ference between  what  they  imagine  and  what  they  act- 
ually see.  /  Their  mind's  eye  sees  as  vividly  as  their 
bodily  ey/;  and  therefore  they  even  believe  their  own 
statements.  Every  attempt  at  contradiction  only  brings 
about  a  fresh  assertion  of  the  impossible,  which  to  the 
child  becomes  more  and  more  certain  as  he  hears  him- 
self affirming  its  existence. 

Punishment  is  of  no  use  at  all  in  the  attempt  to 
regulate  this  exuberance.  The  child's  large  statements 
should  be  smiled  at  and  passed  over.  In  the  meantime, 
he  should  be  encouraged  in  every  possible  way  to  get 
a  firm  grasp  of  the  actual  world  about  him.  Manual 
training,  if  it  can' be  obtained,  is  of  the  greatest  ad- 
vantage, and  for  a  very  young  child,  the  performance 
every  day  of  some  little  act,  which  demands  accuracy 
and  close  attention,  is  necessary.  For  the  rest,  wait ; 
this  is  one  of  the  faults  that  disappear  with  age. 

(2.)  The  lie  of  evasion  is  a  form  of  lying  which 
seldom  appears  when  the  relations  between  child  and 
parents  are  absolutely  friendly  and  open.     However, 


Imaginative 
"Lying" 


The   Lie  of 
Evasion 


4o  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

the  child  who  is  very  desirous  of  approval  may  find 
it  difficult  to  own  up  to  a  fault,  even  when  he  is  cer- 
tain that  the  consequence  of  his  offense  will  not  be  at 
all  terrible.  This  is  the  more  difficult,  because  the 
more  subtle  condition.  It  is  obvious  that  the  child 
who  lies  merely  to  avoid  punishment  can  be  cured  of 
that  fault  by  removing  from  him  'the  fear  of  punish- 
ment. To  this  end,  he  should  be  informed  that  there 
will  be  no  punishment  whatever  for  any  fault  that  he 
freely  confesses.  For  the  chief  object  of  punishment 
being  to  make  him  face  his  own  fault  and  to  see  it  as 
something  ugly  and  disagreeable,  that  object  is  ob- 
viously accomplished  by  a  free  and  open  confession, 
and  no  further  punishment  is  required. 

But  when  the  child  in  spite  of  such  reassurance 
still  continues  to  lie.  both  because  he  cannot  bear  to 
have  you  think  him  capable  of  wrong-doing,  and  be- 
cause he  is  not  willing  to  acknowledge  to  himself  that 
he  is  capable  of  wrong-doing,  the  situation  becomes 
more  complex.  |  All  you  can  do  is  to  urge  upon  him 
the  superior  beauty  of  frankness  ;  to  praise  him  and 
love  him,  especially  when  he  does  acknowledge  a  fault, 
thus  leading  him  to  see  that  the  way  to  win  your  ap- 
proval— that  approval  which  he  desires  so  intensely — 
is  to  face  his  own  shortcomings  with  a  steady  eye  and 
confess  them  to  you  unshrinkingly. 

(3.)  The  politic  lie  is  of  course  the  worst  form 
of  lying,  partly  because  it  is  so  unchildlike.  This  is 
the  kind  of  fault  that  will  grow  with  age :  and  grow 


LYING. 


4i 


with  such  rapidity  that  the  mother  must  set  herself 
against  it  with  all  the  force  at  her  command.  The 
child  who  lies  for  policy's  sake,  in  order  to  achieve 
some  end  which  is  most  easily  achieved  by  lying,  is  a 
child  led  into  wrong-doing  by  his  ardent  desire  to  get 
something  or  do  something.  Discover  what  this  some- 
thing is,  and  help  him  to  get  it  by  more  legitimate 
means.  If  you  point  out  the  straight  path,  and  show 
the  goal  well  in  view  at  the  end  of  it,  he  may  be  per- 
suaded not  to  take  the  crooked  path. 

But  there  are  occasionally  natures  that  delight  in 
crookedness  and  that  even  in  early  childhood.  They 
would  rather  go  about  getting  their  heart's  desire 
in  some  crooked,  intricate,  underhanded  way  than  by 
the  direct  route.  Such  a  fault  is  almost  certain  to  be 
an  inherited  one ;  and  here  again,  a  close  study  of  the 
child's  relatives  will  often  help  the  mother  to  make 
a  good  diagnosis,  and  even  suggest  to  her  the  line 
of  treatment. 

In  an  extreme  case,  the  family  may  unite  in  dis- 
believing the  child  who  lies,  not  merely  disbelieving 
him  when  he  is  lying,  but  disbelieving  him  all  the  time, 
no  matter  what  he  says.  He  must  be  made  to  see, 
and  that  without  room  for  any  further  doubt,  that 
the  crooked  paths  that  he  loves  do  not  lead  to  the 
goal  his  heart  desires,  but  away  from  it.  His  words, 
not  being  true  to  the  facts,  have  lost  their  value,  and 
no  one  around  him  listens  to  them.  He  is,  as  it  were, 
rendered  speechless,  and  his  favorite  means  of  getting 


Extreme 
Cases 


4j  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

his  own  way  is  thus  made  utterly  valueless.  Such  a 
remedy  is  in  truth  a  terrible  one.  While  it  is  being 
administered,  the  child  suffers  to  the  limit  of  his  en- 
durance;  and  it  is  only  justified  in  an  exertme  case, 
and  after  the  failure  of  all  gentler  means. 

JEALOUSY. 

Too  often  this  deadly  evil  is  encouraged  in  infancy, 
instead  of  being  promptly  uprooted  as  it  ought  to  be. 
It  is  very  amusing,  if  one  does  not  consider  the  con- 
sequences, to  see  a  little  child  slap  and  push  away  the 
father  or  the  older  brother,  who  attempts  to  kiss  the 
mother;  but  this  is  another  fault  that  grows  with 
vears,  and  a  fault  so  deadly  that  once  firmly  rooted 
it  can  utterly  destroy  the  beauty  and  happiness  of  an 
otherwise  lovely  nature.  The  first  step  toward  over- 
coming it  must  be  to  make  the  reign  of  strict  justice 
justice      m  t]ie  home  so  obvious  as  to  remove  all  excuse  for  the 

and 

Love  cvjj  The  second  step  is  to  encourage  the  child's  love 
for  those  very  persons  of  whom  he  is  most  likely  to 
be  jealous.  If  he  is"  jealous  of  the  baby,  give  him  spe- 
cial care  of  the  baby.  Jealousy  indicates  a  tempera- 
ment overbalanced  emotionally ;  therefore,  put  your 
force  upon  the  upbuilding  of  the  child's  intellect.  Give 
him  responsibilities,  make  him  think  out  things  for 
himself.  Call  upon  him  to  assist  in  the  family  con- 
claves. Tn  every  way  cultivate  his  power  of  judg- 
ment.    The  whole  object  of  the  treatment  should  be 


JEALOUSY.  43 

to  strengthen  his   intellect  and  to  accustom  his  emo- 
tions to  find  outlet  in  wholesome,  helpful  activity. 

One  wise  mother  made  it  a  rule  to  pet  the  next  to 
the  baby.  The  baby,  she  said,  was  bound  to  be 
petted  a  good  deal  because  of  its  helplessness  and 
sweetness,  therefore  she  made  a  conscious  effort  to  pet 
the  next  to  the  youngest,  the  one  who  had  just  been 
crowded  out  of  the  warm  nest  of  mother's  lap  by 
the  advent  of  the  newcomer.  Such  a  rule  would  go 
far  to  prevent  the  beginnings  of  jealousy. 

SELFISHNESS. 

This  is  a  fault  to  which  strong-willed  children  are 
especially  liable.  The  first  exercise  of  will-power  af- 
ter it  has  passed  the  stage  of  taking  possession  of 
the  child's  own  organism  usually  brings  him  into  con- 
flict with  those  about  him.  To  succeed  in  getting  hold 
of  a  thing  against  the  wish  of  someone  else,  and  to 
hold  on  to  it  when  someone  else  wants  it,  is  to  win  a 
victory.  The  coveted  object  becomes  dear,  not  so 
much  for  its  own  sake,  as  because  it  is  a  trophy.  Such 
a  child  knows  not  the  joy  of  sharing;  he  knows  only 
the  joys  of  wresting  victory  against  odds.  This  is  in- 
deed an  evil  that  grows  with  the  years.  The  child 
who  holds  onto  his  apple,  his  candy,  or  toy,  fights  tooth 
and  nail  everyone  who  wants  to  take  it  from  him. 
and  resists  all  coaxing,  is  liable  to  become  a  hard, 
sordid,  grasping  man,  who  stops  at  no  obstacle  to  ac- 
complish his  purpose. 


44 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


The    Only 
Child 


Yet  in  the  beginning,  this  fault  often  hides  itself 
and  escapes  attention.  The  selfish  child  may  be  quiet, 
clean,  and  under  ordinary  circumstances,  obedient.  He 
may  not  even  be  quarrelsome ;  and  may  therefore  come 
under  a  much  less  degree  of  discipline  than  his  ob- 
streperous, impulsive,  rebellious  little  brother.  Yet, 
in  reality,  his  condition  calls  for  much  more  careful 
attention  than  does  the  condition  of  the  younger 
brother. 

However,  the  child  who  has  no  brother  at  all,  either 
older  or  younger,  nor  any  sister,  is  almost  invited 
by  the  fact  of  his  isolation  to  fall  into  this  sin.  Only 
children  may  be — indeed,  often  are — precocious, 
bright,  capable,  and  well-mannered,  but  they  are  sel- 
dom spontaneously  generous.  Their  own  small  selves 
occupy  an  undue  proportion  of  the  family  horizon, 
and  therefore  of  their  own. 

This  is  where  the  Kindergarten  has  its  great  value. 
In  the  true  Kindergarten  the  children  live  under  a 
dispensation  of  loving  justice,  and  selfishness  betrays 
itself  instantly  there,  because  it  is  alien  to  the  whole 
spirit  of  the  place.  Showing  itself,  it  is  promptly 
condemned,  and  the  child  stands  convicted  by  the  only 
tribunal  whose  verdict  really  moves  him — a  jury  of 
his  peers.  Normal  children  hate  selfishness  and  con- 
demn  it,  and  the  selfish  child  himself,  following  the 
strong,  childish  impulse  of  imitation,  learns  to  hate 
his  own  fault ;  and  so  quick  is  the  forgiveness  of  chil- 


SELFISHNESS. 


45 


dren  that  he  needs  only  to  begin  to  repent  before  the 
circle  of  his  mates  receives  him  again. 

This  is  one  reason  why  the  Kindergarten  takes  chil- 
dren at  such  an  early  age.  Aiming,  as  it  does,  to  lay 
the  foundations  for  right  thinking  and  feeling,  it  must 
begin  before  wrong  foundations  are  too  deeply  laid. 
Its  gentle,  searching  methods  straighten  the  strong 
will  that  is  growing  crooked,  and  strengthen  the  en- 
feebled one. 

But  if  the  selfish  child  is  too  old  for  the  Kindergar- 
ten, he  should  belong  to  a  club.  Consistent  selfishness 
will  not  long  be  tolerated  here.  The  tacit  or  outspoken 
rebuke  of  his  mates  has  many  times  the  force  of  a 
domestic  rebuke ;  because  thereby  he  sees  himself,  at 
least  for  a  time,  as  his  comrades  see  him,  and  never 
thereafter  entirely  loses  his  suspicion  that  they  may 
be  right.  Their  individual  judgment  he  may  defy. 
but  their  collective  judgment  has  in  it  an  almost  magi- 
cal power,  and  convinces  him  in  spite  of  himself. 

Whatever  strong  affections  the  selfish  boy  shows 
must  be  carefully  cultivated.  Love  for  another  is  the 
onlv  sure  cure  for  selfishness.  If  he  loves  animals,  let 
him  have  pets,  and  give  into  his  hands  the  whole  re- 
sponsibility for  the  care  of  them.  It  is  better  to  let 
the  poor  animals  suffer  some  neglect,  than  to  take 
away  from  the  boy  the  responsibility  for  their  condi- 
tion. Thev  serve  him  only  so  far  as  he  can  be  in- 
duced to  serve  them.  The  chief  rule  for  the  cure  of 
selfishness  is,  then,  to  watch  every  affection,  small  and 


Intimate 
Association 
a    Help 


Cultivate 
Affections 


46  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

large,  encourage  it,  give  it  room  to  grow,  and  see  to 
it  that  the  child  does  not  merely  get  delight  out  of  it, 
but  that  he  works  for  it,  that  he  sacrifices  himself  for 
those  whom  he  loves. 

LAZINESS. 

The  Physical  This   condition    is   often   normal,    especially   during 


Cause 


adolescence.  The  developing  boy  or  girl  wants  to  lop 
and  to  lounge,  to  lie  sprawled  over  the  floor  or  the 
sofa.  Quick  movement  is  distasteful  to  him,  and 
often  has  an  undue  effect  upon  the  heart's  action.  He 
is  normally  dreamy,  languid,  indifferent,  and  subject 
to  various  moods.  These  things  are  merely  tokens 
of  tiie  tremendous  change  that  is  going  on  within  his 
organism,  and  which  heavily  drains  his  vitality.  Cer- 
tain duties  may,  of  course,  be  required  of  him  at  this 
stage,  but  they  should  be  light  and  steady.  He  should 
not  be  expected  to  fill  up  chinks  and  run  errands  with 
joyful  alacrity.  The  six-  or  eight-year-old  may  be 
called  upon  for  these  things,  and  not  be  harmed,  but 
this  is  not  true  of  the  child  between  twelve  and  sev- 
enteen. He  has  absorbing  business  on  hand  and  should 
not  be  too  often  called  away  from  it. 

Laziness    ordinarily   accompanies    rapid    growth    of 
and      anv  kind.     The  unusually  large  child,  even  if  he  has 

Rapid   Growth  ■>  ■  ° 

not  yet  reached  the  period  of  adolescence,  is  likely  to 
be  lazy.  His  nervous  energies  are  deflected  to  keep 
up  his  growth,  and  his  intelligence  is  often  temporarily 
dulled  by  the  rapidity  of  his  increase  in  size. 


Laziness 


LAZINESS. 


47 


Moreover,  it  is  not  natural  for  any  child  to  hurry. 
Hurry  is  in  itself  both  a  result  of  nervous  strain  and 
a  cause  of  it ;  and  grown  people  whose  nerves  have 
been  permanently  wrenched  away  from  normal  quietude 
and  steadiness,  often  form  a  habit  of  hurry  which 
makes  them  both  unfriendly  toward  children  and  very 
bad  for  children.  These  young  creatures  ought  to  go 
along  through  their  days  rather  dreamily  and  alto- 
gether serenely.  Every  turn  of  the  screw  to  tighten 
their  nerves  makes  more  certain  some  form  of  early 
nervous  breakdown.  They  ought  to  have  work  to  do, 
of  course, — enough  of  it  to  occupy  both  mind  and  body 
— but  it  should  be  quiet,  systematic,  regular  work,  much 
of  it  performed  almost  automatically.  Only  occasion- 
ally should  they  be  required-  to  do  things  with  a  con- 
scious effort  to  attain  speed. 

However,  there  is  a  degree  of  laziness  difficult  of 
definition  which  is  abnormal ;  the  child  fails  to  per- 
form any  work  with  regularity,  and  falls  behind  both 
at  school  and  at  home.  This  may  be  the  result  of  ( i ) 
poor  assimilation,  (2)  of  anaemia,  or  it  may  be  (3) 
the  first  symptom  of  some  disease. 

(1.)  Poor  assimilation  may  show  itself  either 
by  (a)  thinness  and  lack  of  appetite;  (b)  fat  and  ab- 
normal appetite;  (c)  retarded  growth;  or  (d)  irreg- 
ular and  poorly  made  teeth  and  weak  bones. 

(2.)  Anaemia  betrays  itself  most  characteristically 
by  the  color  of  the  lips  and  gums.  These,  instead  of 
being  red,  are  a  pale  yellowish  pink,  and  the  whole 


Hurry 

Not   Natural 


Abnormal 
Laziness 


48  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

complexion  has  a  sort  of  waxy  pallor.  In  extreme 
cases  this  pallor  even  becomes  greenish.  As  the  dis- 
ease is  accompanied  with  little  pain,  and  few  if  any 
marked  symptoms,  beyond  sleepiness  and  weakness,  it 
often  exists  for  some  time  without  being  suspected  by 
the  parents. 

(3.)  The  advent  of  many  other  diseases  is  an- 
nounced by  a  languid  indifference  to  surroundings,  and 
a  slow  response  to  the  customary  stimuli.  The  child's 
brain  seems  clouded,  and  a  light  form  of  torpor  in- 
vades the  whole  body.  The  child,  who  is  usually  active 
and  interested  in  things  about  him,  but  who  loses  his 
activity  and  becomes  dull  and  irresponsive,  should  be 
carefully  watched.  It  may  be  that  he  is  merely  chang- 
ing his  form  of  growth — i.  c,  is  beginning  to  grow  tall 
after  completion  of  his  period  of  laying  on  flesh,  or 
vice  versa.  Or  he  may  be  entering  upon  the  period  of 
adolescence.  But  if  it  is  neither  of  these  things,  a 
physician  should  be  consulted. 
Monotony  A  milder  degree  of  laziness  may  be  induced  by  a 

too  monotonous  round  of  duties.  Trv  changing  them. 
Make  them  as  attractive  as  possible.  For,  of  course, 
you  do  not  require  him  to  perform  these  duties  for 
your  sake,  whatever  you  allow  him  to  suppose  about 
it,  but  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  their  influence  on  his 
character.  Therefore,  if  the  influence  of  any  work  is 
bad,  you  will  change  it,  although  the  new  work  may 
not  be  nearly  so  much  what  you  prefer  to  have  him 
do.      Whatever  the   work    is,   if   it   is   only    emptying 


LAZINESS. 


4<J 


waste-baskets,   don't   nag'  him,   merely   expect   him   to 
do  it,  and  expect  it  steadily. 

In  their  earlier  years  all  children  love  to  help  mother. 
They  like  any  piece  of  real  work  even  better  than 
play.  If  this  love  of  activity  was  properly  encour- 
aged, if  the  mother  permitted  the  child  to  help,  even 
when  he  succeeded  only  in  hindering,  he  might  well 
become  one  of  those  fortunate  persons  who  love  to 
work.  This  is  the  real  time  for  preventing  laziness. 
But  if  this  early  period  has  been  missed,  the  next  best 
thing  is  to  take  advantage  of  every  spontaneous  in- 
terest as  it  arises;  to  hitch  the  impulse,  as  it  were,  to 
some  task  that  must  be  steadily  performed.  For  ex- 
ample, if  the  child  wants  to  play  with  tools,  help  him 
to  make  a  small  water-wheel,  or  any  other  interest- 
ing contrivance,  and  keep  him  at  it  by  various  devices 
until  he  has  brought  it  to  a  fair  degree  of  comple- 
tion. Your  aim  is  to  stretch  his  will  each  time  he  at- 
tempts to  do  something  a  little  further  than  it  tends 
to  go  of  itself ;  to  let  him  work  a  little  past  his  first 
impulse,  so  that  he  may  learn  by  degrees  to  work  when 
work  is  needed,  and  not  only  when  he  feels  like  it. 


Helping: 


UNTIDINESS. 

Essentially  a  fault  of  immaturity  as  this  is,  we 
must  beware  how  we  measure  it  by  a  too  severe  adult 
standard.  It  is  not  natural  for  any  young  creature  to 
take  an  interest  in  cleanliness.  Even  the  young  ani- 
mals are  cared  for  in  this  respect  by  their  parents  ;  the 


Neatness 
Not     Natural 


5° 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


Remedies 


Example 


cow  licks  her  calf ;  the  cat,  her  kittens ;  and  neither 
calf  nor  kittens  seem  to  take  much  interest  in  the  pro- 
cess. The  conscious  love  of  cleanliness  and  order 
grows  with  years,  and  seems  to  be  largely  a  mat- 
ter of  custom.  The  child  who  has  always  lived  in 
decent  surroundings  by-and-by  finds  them  necessary 
to  his  comfort,  and  is  willing  to  make  a  degree  of  ef- 
fort to  secure  them.  On  the  contrary,  the  street  boy 
who  sleeps  in  his  clothes,  does  not  know  what  it  is  to 
desire  a  well-made  bed,  and  an  orderly  room. 

The  obvious  method  of  overcoming  this  difficulty, 
then,  is  not  to  chide  the  child  for  the  fault,  but  to  make 
him  so  accustomed  to,  pleasant  surroundings  that  he 
cannot  help  but  desire  them.  The  whole  process  of 
making  the  child  love  order  is  slow  but  sure.  It  con- 
sists in  (i)  Patient  waiting  on  nature:  first,  keep  the 
baby  himself  sweet  and  clean,  washing  the  young 
child  yourself,  two  or  three  times  a  day,  and  showing 
your  delight  in  his  sweetness  ;  dressing  him  so  simply 
that  he  keeps  in  respectable  order  without  the  neces- 
sity of  a  painful  amount  of  attention.  (2)  Example: 
He  is  to  be  accustomed  to  orderly  surroundings,  and 
though  you  ordinarily  require  him  to  put  away  some 
of  his  things  himself,  you  do  also  assist  this  process 
by  putting  away  a  good  deal  to  which  you  do  not  call 
attention.  You  make  your  home  not  only  orderly  but 
pretty,  and  yourself,  also,  that  his  love  for  you  may 
lead  him  into  a  love  for  daintiness.  (3)  Habits:  A 
few  set  observances  may  be  safely  and  steadfastly  de- 


UNTIDINESS.  51 

manded,  but  these  should  be  very  few :  Such  as  that 
he  should  not  come  to  breakfast  without  brushing  his 
teeth  and  combing  his  hair,  or  sit  down  to  any  meal 
with  unwashed  hands.  Make  them  so  few  that  you 
can  be  practically  certain  that  they  are  attended  to, 
for  the  whole  value  of  the  discipline  is  not  in  the  su- 
perior condition  of  his  teeth,  but  in  the  habit  of  mind 
that  is  being  formed. 

IMPUDENCE. 

Impudence  is  largely  due  to,  (1)  lack  of  perception; 
(2)  to  bad  example  and  to  suggestion;  and  (3)  to  a 
double  standard  of  morality. 

(1.)  In  the  first  place,  too  much  must  not  be  ex-  Lack  of 
pected  of  the  young  savages  in  the  nursery.  Remem-  PercePtl0n 
ber  that  the  children  there  are  in  a  state  very  much 
more  nearly  resembling  that  of  a  savage  or  half- 
civilized  nation  than  resembling  your  own,  and  that, 
therefore,  while  they  will  undoubtedly  take  kindly  to 
showy  ceremonial,  they  are  not  ripe  yet  for  most 
of  the  delicate  observances.  At  best,  you  can  only 
hope  to  get  the  crude  material  of  good  manners  from 
them.  You  can  hope  that  they  will  be  in  the  main 
kind  in  intention,  and  as  courteous  under  provoca- 
tion as  is  consistent  with  their  stage  of  development. 
If  you  secure  this,  you  need  not  trouble  yourself  un- 
duly over  occasional  lapses  into  perfectly  innocent  and 
wholesome  barbarism. 


52  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

Good  manners  are  in  the  main  dependent  upon 
quick  sympathies,  because  sympathies  develop  the  per- 
ceptions. A  child  is  much  less  likely  to  hurt  the  feel- 
ings or  shock  the  sensibilities  of  a  person  whom  he 
loves  tenderly  than  of  one  for  whom  he  cares  very 
little.  Ihis  is  the  chief  reason  why  all  children  are 
so  much  more  likely  to  be  offensive  in  speech  and  ac- 
tion before  strangers  than  when  alone  in  the  bosom  of 
their  families.  They  are  so  far  from  caring  what  a 
stranger  thinks  or  feels  that  they  cannot  even  fore- 
cast his  displeasure,  nor  imagine  its  reaction  upon 
mother  or  father.  The  more,  then,  that  the  child's 
sympathies  are  broadened,  the  more  he  is  encouraged 
to  take  an  interest  in  all  people,  even  strangers,  the 
better  mannered  will  he  become. 

(2.)  Bad  example  is  more  common  than  is  usual- 
Exampie  ly  supposed.  Very  few  parents  are  consistently  courte- 
ous toward  their  children.  They  permit  themselves  a 
sharp  tone  of  voice,  and  rough  and  abrupt  habits  of 
speech,  that  would  scarcely  be  tolerated  by  any  adult. 
Even  an  otherwise  gentle  and  amiable  woman  is  often 
disagreeable  in  her  manner  toward  her  children,  com- 
manding them  to  do  things  in  a  way  well  calculated 
to  excite  opposition,  and  rebuking  wrong-doing  in 
unmeasured  terms.  She  usually  reserves  her  soft  and 
gentle  speeches  for  her  own  friends  and  for  her  hus- 
band's, yet  discourtesy  cannot  begin  to  harm  them  as 
it  harms  her  children. 


Bad 


IMPUDENCE.  S3 

It  is  true  that  the  children  are  often  under  foot 
when  she  is  busiest,  when,  indeed,  she  is  so  distracted 
as  to  not  be  able  to  think  about  manners,  but  if  she 
would  acknowledge  to  herself  that  she  ought  to  be 
polite,  and  that  when  she  fails  to  be,  it  is  because  she 
has  yielded  to  temptation  ;  and  if,  moreover,  she  would 
make  this  acknowledgment  openly  to  her  children  and 
beg  their  pardon  for  her  sharp  words,  as  she  ex- 
pects them  to  beg  hers,  the  spirit  of  courtesy,  at  any 
rate,  would  prevail  in  her  house,  and  would  influence 
her  children.  Children  are  lovingly  ready  to  forgive 
an  acknowledged  fault,  but  keen-eyed  beyond  belief  in 
detecting  a  hidden  one. 

(3.)  The  most  fertile  cause  of  impudence 'is  as-  D0ubie 
sumption  of  a  double  standard  of  morality,  one  for 
the  child  and  another  for  the  adult.  Impudence  is,  at 
bottom,  the  child's  perception  of  this  injustice,  and 
his  rebellion  against  it.  When  to  this  double  standard, 
— a  standard  that  measures  up  gossip,  for  instance, 
as  right  for  the  adult,  and  listening  to  gossip  as  wrong 
for  the  child — when  to  this  is  added  the  assumption 
of  infallibility,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  child  fairly 
rages. 

For,  if  we  come  to  analyze  them,  what  are  the 
speeches  which  we  find  so  objectionable?  "Do  it 
yourself,  if  you  are  so  smart."  "Maybe  I  am  rude, 
but  I'm  not  any  ruder  than  you  are."  "I  think  you 
are  just  as  mean  as  mean  can  be;  I  wouldn't  be  so 
mean !"     Is  this  last  speech  any  worse  in  reality  than 


Standard 


Example 


54  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

"You  are  a  very  naughty  little  girl,  and  I  am  ashamed 
of  you,"  and  all  sorts  of  other  expressions  of  candid 
adverse  opinion?  Besides  these  forms  of  impudence, 
there  is  the  peculiarly  irritating :  "Well,  you  do  it 
yourself ;  I  guess  I  can  if  you  can." 

In  all  these  cases  the  child  is  partly  in  the  right. 
He  is  stating  the  fact  as  he  sees  it,  and  violently  as- 
serting that  you  are  not  privileged  to  demand  more 
of  him  than  of  yourself.  The  evil  comes  in  through 
the  fact  that  he  is  doing  it  in  an  ugly  spirit.  He  is 
not  only  desirous  of  stating  the  truth,  but  of  putting 
you  in  the  wrong  and  himself  in  the  right,  and  if  this 
hurts  you,  so  much  the  better.  All  this  is  because  he 
is  angry,  and  therefore,  in  impudence,  the  true  evil 
to  be  overcome  is  the  evil  of  anger. 

Show  him,  then,  that  you  are  open  to  correction. 
Admit  the  justice  of  the  rebuke  as  far  as  you  can, 
and  set  him  an  example  of  careful  courtesy  and  for- 
bearance at  the  very  moment  when  these  traits  are 
most  conspicuously  lacking  in  him.  If  some  special 
point  is  involved,  some  question  of  privilege,  quietly, 
hut  very  firmly,  defer  the  consideration  of  it  until 
he  is  master  of  himself  and  can  discuss  the  situation 
with  an  open  mind  and  in  a  courteous  manner. 

CORPORAL    PUNISHMENT. 

In  all  these  examples,  which  are  merely  suggestive, 
it  is  impossible  to  lay  down  any  absolute  moral  re- 
cipe,  because   circumstances   so  truly    alter   cases — in 


CORPOR.tr.  PI  WISHMENT 


55 


all  these  no  mention  is  made  of  corporal  punishment. 
This  is  because  corporal  punishment  is  never  neces- 
sary, never  right,  but  is  always  harmful. 

There  are  three  principal  reasons  why  it  should  not 
be  resorted  to :  First,  because  it  is  indiscriminate.  To 
inflict  bodily  pain  as  a  consequence  of  widely  various 
faults,  leads  to  moral  confusion.  The  child  who  is 
spanked  for  lying,  spanked  for  disobedience,  and 
spanked  again  for  tearing  his  clothes,  is  likely  enough 
to  consider  these  three  things  as  much  the  same,  as, 
at  any  rate,  of  equal  importance,  because  they  all  lead 
to  the  same  result.  This  is  to  lay  the  foundation  for 
a  permanent  moral  confusion,  and  a  man  who  cannot 
see  the  nature  of  a  wrong  deed,  and  its  relative  im- 
portance, is  incapable  of  guiding  himself  or  others. 
Corporal  punishment  teaches  a  child  nothing  of  the 
reason  why  what  he  does  is  wrong.  Wrong  must 
seem  to  him  to  be  dependent  upon  the  will  of  another, 
and  its  disagreeable  consequences  to  be  escapable  if 
only  he  can  evade  the  will  of  that  other. 

Second :  Corporal  punishment  is  wrong  because  it 
inculcates  fear  of  pain  as  the  motive  for  conduct, 
instead  of  love  of  righteousness.  It  tends  directly  to 
cultivate  cowardice,  deceitfulness,  and  anger — three 
faults  worse  than  almost  any  fault  against  which  it 
can  be  employed.  True,  some  persons  grow  up  both 
gentle  and  straightforward  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
they  have  been  whipped  in  their  youth,  but  it  is  in 
spite  of,  and  not  because  of  it.     In  their  homes  other 


Moral 
Confusion 


Fer.r 

versus 

Love 


56  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

good  qualities  must  have  counteracted  the  pernicious 
effect  of  this  mistaken  procedure. 

Third:  Corporal  punishment  may,  indeed,  achieve 
immediate  results  such  as  seem  at  the  moment  to  be 
eminently  desirable.  The  child,  if  he  be  young 
enough,  weak  enough,  and  helpless  enough,  may  be 
made  to  do  almost  anything  by  fear  of  the  rod ;  and 
some  of  the  things  he  may  thus  be  made  to  do  may 
be  exactly  the  things  that  he  ought  to  do ;  and  this 
certainty  of  result  is  exactly  what  prompts  many 
otherwise  just  and  thoughtful  persons  to  the  use  of 
corporal  punishment.  But  these  good  results  are  ob- 
tained at  the  expense  of  the  future.  The  effect  of 
each  spanking  is  a  little  less  than  the  effect  of  the 
preceding  one.  The  child's  sensibilities  blunt.  As 
in  the  case  of  a  man  with  the  drug  habit,  it  requires 
a  larger  and  larger  dose  to  produce  the  required 
effect.  That  is,  if  he  is  a  strong  child  capable  of  en- 
during and  resisting  much.  If,  on  the  contrary,  he 
is  a  weak  child,  whose  slow  budding  will  come  only 
timidly  into  existence,  one  or  two  whippings  followed 
by  threats,  may  suffice  to  keep  him  in  a  permanently 
cowed  condition,  incapable  of  initiative,  incapable  of 
spontaneity. 

The  method  of  discipline  here  indicated,  while  it  is 
more  searching  than  any  corporal  punishment,  does 
not  have  any  of  its  disadvantages.  It  is  more  search- 
ing, because   it   never  blunts  the   child's   sensibilities, 


CORPORAL  PUNISHMENT. 


57 


but  rather  tends  to  refine  them,  and  to  make  them 
more  responsive. 

The  child  thus  trained  should  become  more  sus- 
ceptible, day  by  day,  to  gentle  and  elevating  in- 
fluences. This  discipline  is  educative,  explaining  to 
the  child  why  what  he  does  is  wrong,  showing  him 
the  painful  effects  as  inherent  in  the  deed  itself.  He 
cannot,  therefore,  conceive  of  himself  as  being  ever 
set  free  from  the  obligation  to  do  right ;  for  that  ob- 
ligation within  his  experience  does  not  rest  upon  his 
mother's  will  or  ability  to  inflict  punishment,  but 
upon  the  very  nature  of  the  universe  of  which  he  is 
a  part.  The  effects  of  such  discipline  are  therefore 
permanent.  That  which  happens  to  the  child  in  the 
nursery,  also  happens  to  him  in  the  great  world  when 
he  reaches  manhood.  His  nursery  training  interprets 
and  orders  the  world  for  him.  He  comes,  therefore, 
into  the  world  not  desiring  to  experiment  with  evil, 
but  clear-eyed  to  detect  it,  and  strong-armed  to  over- 
come it. 

We  are  now  ready  to  consider  our  subject  in  some 
of  its  larger  aspects. 


Educative 
Discipline 


Permanent 
Results 


TEST    QUESTIONS. 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

PART  I. 


Read  Carefully.  In  answering  these  questions  you  are 
earnestly  requested  not  to  answer  according  to  the  text-book 
where  opinions  are  asked  for,  but  to  answer  according  to 
conviction.  In  all  cases  credit  will  be  given  for  thought  and 
original  observation.  Place  your  name  and  full  address  at 
the  head  of  the  paper ;  use  your  own  words  so  that  your  in- 
structor may  be  sure  that  you  understand  the  subject. 


1.  How  does  Fiske  account  for  the  prolonged  help- 

lessness of  the  human  infant?     To  what  prac- 
tical conclusions  does  this  lead? 

2.  Name    the    four    essentials    for    proper    bodily 

growth. 

3.  How  does  the  child's  world  differ  from  that  of 

the  adult? 

4.  In   training  a  child   morally,  how   do  you  know 

which  faults  are  the  most  important  and  should 
have,  therefore,  the  chief  attention  ? 

5.  In  training  the  will,  what  end  must  be  held  stead- 

ily in  view  ? 

6.  What  are  the  advantages  or  disadvantages  of  a 

broken  will  ? 

7.  Is    obedience    important  ?      Obedience    to    what  ? 

How    do   you   train    for   prompt   obedience    in 
emergencies  ? 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

8.  What  is  the  object  of  punishment?    Does  corporal 

punishment  accomplish  this  object? 

9.  What  kind  of  punishment  is  most  effective? 

10.  Have  any  faults  a  physical  origin?     If  so,  name 

some  of  them  and  explain. 

11.  What   are   the   two   great   teachers   according  to 

Tiederman  ? 

12.  What  can  you  say  of  the  fault  of  untidiness? 

13.  What  are  the  dangers  of  precocity? 

14.  What  do  you  consider  were  the  errors  your  own 

parents  made  in  training  their  children  ? 

15.  Are  there  any  questions   which    you   would  like 

to  ask   in   regard  to  the  subjects  taken  up  in 
this  lesson  ? 

After  completing  the  test,  add  and  sign  the  following  state- 
ment : 
The  above  work  is  entirely  my  own. 
(Signed) 


Study  of  Child   Life 


PART   II 


LESSON    PA  PER 

PREPARED    By 

MARION   FOSTER  WASHBURNE 

ASSOCIATE  EDITOR    "SUCCESS  LIBRARY" 

AUTHOR,   LECTURER 

FORMERLY  INSTRUCTOR   SCHOOL  OF   EDUCATION 

UNIVERSITY  OF    CHICAGO 


1904 

Ameri 

can  School 

of  House 

ho 

Id 

Economics 

CHICAGO 

ILLINOIS, 

u. 

s. 

A. 

Copyright,  1904,  by 
American  School  of  Household  Economics. 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE 

PART  II 


Philosophy 


CHARACTER    BUILDING 

Although  we  have  taken  up  the  question  of  pun- 
ishment and  the  manner  of  dealing  with  various  child- 
ish iniquities  before  the  question  of  character-build- 
ing', it  has  only  been  done  in  order  to  clear  the  mind 
of  some  current  misconceptions.  In  the  statements 
of  Froebel's  simple  and  positive  philosophy  of  child  Froebei-s 
culture,  misconception  on  the  part  of  the  reader  must 
be  guarded  against,  and  these  misconceptions  gener- 
ally arise  from  a  feeling  that,  beautiful  as  his  opti- 
mistic philosophy  may  be,  there  are  some  children 
too  bad  to  profit  by  it — or  at  least  that  there  are  oc- 
casions when  it  will  not  work  out  in  practice.  In 
the  preceding  section  we  have  endeavored  to  show  in 
detail  how  this  method  applies  to  a  representative 
list  of  faults  and  shortcomings,  and  having  thus,  we 
hope,  proved  that  the  method  is  applicable  to  a  wide 
range  of  cases — indeed  to  all  possible  cases — we  will 
proceed  to  recount  the  fundamental  principles  which 
Froebel,  and  before  him  Pestalozzi,*  enunciated; 
which  those  who  adhere  to  the  new  education  are  to- 
day working  out  into  the  detail  of  school-room  prac- 
tice. 

*  Pestalozzi,    Educator.  Philosopher,  and    Reformer.     Author   of 
"How  Gertrude  Teaches  Her  Children." 


6o 


STUDY   OF    CHILD    LIVE. 


Object  of 

Moral 

Training. 


The 

Reason 

Why 


As  previously  stated,  the  object  of  the  moral  train- 
ing of  the  child  is  the  inculcation  of  the  love  of  right- 
eousness. FrcL-bel  is  not  concerned  with  laying  down 
a  mass  of  observances  which  the  child  must  follow, 
and  which  the  parents  must  insist  upon.  He  thinks 
rather  that  the  child's  nature  once  turned  into  the 
right  direction  and  surrounded  bv  right  influences  will 
grow  straight  without  constant  yankings  and  twist- 
ings.  The  child  who  loves  to  do  right  is  safe.  He 
may  make  mistakes  as  to  what  the  right  is,  but  he 
will  learn  by  these  mistakes,  and  will  never  go  far 
astray. 

However,  it  is  well  to  save  him  as  far  «s  possible 
from  the  pain  of  these  mistakes.  We  need  to  pre- 
serve in  him  what  has  already  been  implanted  there ; 
the  love  of  understanding  the  reasons  for  conduct. 
When  the  child  asks  "Why?"  therefore,  he  should 
seldom  be  told  "Because  mother  says  so."  This  is  to 
deny  a  rightful  activity  of  his  young  mind  ;  to  give 
him  a  monotonous  and  insufficient  reason,  temporary 
in  its  nature,  instead  of  a  lasting  reason  which  will 
remain  with  him  through  life.  Dante  says  all  those 
who  have  lost  what  he  calls  ''the  good  of  the  intel- 
lect" are  in  the  Inferno.  And  when  you  refuse  to  give 
your  child  satisfactory  reasons  for  the  conduct  you 
require  of  him,  yon  refuse  to  cultivate  in  him  that 
very  good  of  the  intellect  which  is  necessary  for  his 
salvation. 


Advantage 
of  Positive 
Commands 


CHARACTER    BUILDING.  61 

As  soon,  however,  as  your  commands  become  posi- 
tive instead  of  negative,  the  difficulty  of  meeting  the 
situation  begins  to  disappear.  It  is  usually  much 
easier  to  tell  the  child  why  he  should  do  a  thing  than 
why  he  should  not  do  its  opposite.  For  example,  it 
is  much  easier  to  make  him  see  that  he  ought  to  be 
a  helpful  member  of  the  family  than  to  make  him 
understand  why  he  should  stop  making  a  loud  noise, 
or  refrain  from  waking  up  the  baby.  There  is  some- 
thing in  the  child  which  in  calm  moments  recognizes 
that  love  demands  some  sacrifice.  To  this  something 
you  must  appeal  and  these  calm  moments,  for  the 
most  part,  you  must  choose  for  making  the  appeal. 
The  effort  is  to  prevent  the  appearance  of  evil  by  the 
active  presence  of  good.  The  child  who  is  busy  trying 
to  be  good  has  little  time  to  be  naughty. 

Frobel's    most    characteristic    utterance    is    perhaps      original 
this :     "A    suppressed    or    perverted    good    quality — a 

tDd  tendency,  only  repressed,  misunderstood,  or 
sguided — lies  originally  at  the  bottom  of  every 
)rtcoming  in  man.  Hence  the  only  and  infallible 
remedy  for  counteracting  any  shortcoming  and  even 
wickedness  is  to  find  the  originally  good  source,  the 
originally  good  side  of  the  human  being  that  has  been 
repressed,  disturbed,  or  misled  into  the  shortcoming, 
and  then  to  foster,  build  up,  and  properly  guide  this 
good  side.  Thus  the  shortcoming  will  at  last  dis- 
appear,   although    it    may    involve    a    hard    struggle 


62  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

against  habit,  but  not  against  original  depravity  in 
man,  and  this  is  accomplished  so  much  the  more  rap- 
idly and  surely  because  man  himself  tends  to  abandon 
his  shortcomings,  for  man  prefers  right  to  wrong." 
The  natural  deduction  from  this  is  that  we  should 
say  "do"  rather  than  "don't" ;  open  up  the  natural 
way  for  rightful  activity  instead  of  uttering  loud 
warning  cries  at  the  entrance  to  every  wrong  path. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  kindergarten  tries  by 
every  means  to  make  right  doing  delightful.  This 
is  one  of  the  reasons  for  its  songs,  dances,  plays,  its 
bright  colors,  birds,  and  flowers.  And  in  this  respect 
it  may  well  be  imitated  in  every  home.  No  one  loves 
that  which  is  disagreeable,  ugly,  and  forbidding;  yet 
many  little  children  are  expected  to  love  right  doing 
which  is  seldom  attractively  presented  to  them. 

The  results  of  such  treatment  are  apparent  in  the 
grown  people  of  to-day.  Most  persons  have  an  under- 
lying conviction  that  sinners,  or  at  any  rate  unconscien- 
tious persons,  have  a  much  easier  and  pleasanter  timcWf 
it  than  those  who  try  to  do  right.  To  the  imagination ^f 
the  majority  of  adults  sin  is  dressed  in  glittering  colors 
and  virtue  in  gray,  somber  garments.  There  are  few 
who  do  not  take  credit  for  right  doing  as  if  they 
had  chosen  a  hard  and  disagreeable  part  instead  of 
the  more  alluring  ways  of  wrong.  This  is  because 
they  have  been  mis-taught  in  childhood  and  have 
come  to  think  of  wrongdoing  as  pleasant  and  virtue 


CHARACTER    BUILDING. 


63 


as  hard,  whereas  the  real  truth  is  exactly  the  oppo- 
site. It  is  wrongdoing  that  brings  unpleasant  conse- 
quences and  virtue  that  brings  happiness. 

There  are  those  who  object  that  by  the  kinder- 
garten method  right  doing  is  made  too  easy.  The 
children  do  not  have  to  put  forth  enough  effort,  they 
say ;  they  are  not  called  upon  to  endure  sufficient 
pain ;  they  do  not  have  the  discipline  which  causes 
them  to  choose  right  no  matter  how  painful  right 
may  be  for  the  moment.  Whether  this  dictum  is 
ever  true  or  not,  it  certainly  is  not  true  in  early  child- 
hood. The  love  of  righteousness  needs  to  be  firmly 
rooted  in  the  character  before  it  is  strained  and  pulled 
upon.  We  do  not  start  seedlings  in  the  rocky  soil 
or  plant  out  saplings  in  time  of  frost.  If  tests  and 
trials  of  virtue  must  come,  let  them  come  in  later  life 
when  the  love  of  virtue  is  so  firmlv  established  that  it 
may  be  trusted  to  find  a  way  to  its  own  satisfaction 
through  whatever  difficulties  may  oppose. 

In  the  very  beginning  of  anv  effort  to  live  up  to 
Froebel's  requirements  it  is  evident  that  children  must 
not  be  measured  by  the  way  they  appear  to  the  neigh- 
bors. This  is  to  reaffirm  the  power  of  that  rigid 
tradition  which  has  warped  so  many  young  lives.  She 
who  is  trying  to  fix  her  child's  heart  upon  true  and 
holy  things  may  well  disregard  her  neighbor's  com- 
ments on  the  child's  manners  or  clothes  or  even  upon 
momentary    ebullitions    of    temper.     She    is    working 


Right  Doing 
Made  Easy 


Neighbors' 
Opinions 


64 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


Rights 
of  Others 


below  the  surface  of  things,  is  setting  eternal  forces 
to  work,  and  she  cannot  afford  to  interrupt  this  work 
for  the  sake  of  shining  the  child  up  with  any  prema- 
ture outside  polish.  If  she  is  to  have  any  peace  of 
mind  or  to  allow  any  to  the  child,  if  she  is  to  live  in  any 
way  a  simple  and  serene  life,  she  must  establish  a  few 
fundamental  principles  by  which  she  judges  her  child's 
conduct  and  regulates  her  own,  and  stand  by  these 
principles  through  thick  and  thin. 

Perhaps  the  most  fundamental  principle  is  that 
enunciated  by  Fichte.  "Each  man,"  he  says,  "is  a 
free  being  in  a  world  of  other  free  beings."  There- 
fore his  freedom  is  limited  only  by  the  freedom  of  the 
other  free  beings.  That  is,  they  must  "divide  the 
world  amongst  them."  Stated  in  the  form  of  a  com- 
mand he  says  again,  "Restrict  your  freedom  through 
the  freedom  of  all  other  persons  with  whom  you  come 
in  contact."  This  is  a  rule  that  even  a  three-year-old 
child  can  be  made  to  understand,  and  it  is  astonish- 
ing with  what  readiness  he  will  admit  its  justice.  He 
can  do  anything  he  wants  to,  you  explain  to  him,  except 
bother  other  people.  And,  of  course,  the  corollary 
follows  that  every  one  else  can  do  whatever  he  pleases 
except  to  bother  the  child. 

This  clear  and  simple  doctrine  can  be  driven  home 
with  amazing  force,  if  you  strictly  respect  the  child's 
right  as  you  require  him  to  respect  yours.  You  should 
neither  allow  any  encroachments  upon  your  own  proper 
privileges,   except  so   far  as  you  explain   that   this  is 


CHARACTER    BUILDING.  65 

only  a  loving  permission  on  your  part,  and  not  to  be 
assumed  as  a  precedent  or  to  be  demanded  as  a  right ; 
nor  should  you  yourself  encroach  upon  his  privileges. 

If  you  do  not  expect  him  to  interrupt  you,  you 
must  not  interrupt  him.  If  you  expect  him  to'  let  you 
alone  when  you  are  busy,  you  must  let  him  alone 
when  he  is  busy,  that  is,  when  he  is  hard  at  work 
playing.  If  you  must  call  him  away  from  his  playing, 
give  him  warning,  so  that  he  may  have  time  to  put 
his  small  affairs  in  order  before  obeying  your  com- 
mand. The  more  carefully  you  do  this  the  more 
willing  will  be  his  response  on  the  infrequent  occa- 
sions when  you  must  demand  immediate  attention.  In 
some  such  fashion  you  teach  the  child  to  respect  the 
rights  of  others  by  scrupulously  respecting  those  rights 
to  which  he  is  most  alive,  namely,  his  own.  The  next 
step  is  to  require  him  with  you  to  think  out  the  rights 
of  others,  and  both  of,  you  together  should  shape  your 
conduct  so  as  to  leave  these  rights  uninfringed. 

As  soon  as  the  young  child's  will  has  fully  taken  pos- 
session of  his  own  organism  he  will  inevitably  try  to 
rule  yours.  The  establishment  of  the  law  of  which  I 
have  just  spoken  will  go  far  toward  regulating  this 
new-born  desire.  But  still  he  must  be  allowed  in  some 
degree  to  rule  others,  because  power  to  rule  others 
is  likely  to  be  at  some  time  during  his  life  of  great 
importance  to  him.  To  thwart  him  absolutely  in  this 
respect,  never  yielding  yourself  to  his  imperious  de- 
mands, is  .alike  impossible  and  undesirable.     His  will 


66 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


must  not  be  shut  up  to  himself  and  ,to  the  things  that 
he  can  make  himself  do.  In  various  ways,  with  due 
consideration  for  other  people's  feelings,  with  courtesy, 
with  modesty,  he  may  well  be  encouraged  to  do  his 
share  of  ruling.  And  while,  of  course,  he  will  not 
begin  his  ruling  in  such  restrained  and  thoughtful 
fashion  as  is  implied  by  these  limitations,  yet  he  must 
be  suffered  to  begin ;  and  the  rule  for  the  respect  of  the 
rights  of  others  should  be  suffered  gradually  to  work 
out  these  modifications. 

A  safe  distinction  may  be  made  as  follows :  Per- 
mit him,  since  he  is  so  helpless,,  to  rule  and  persuade 
others  to  satisfy  his  legitimate  desires,  such  as  the  de- 
sire for  food,  sleep,  affection,  and  knowledge  ;  but  when 
he  demands  indulgencies,  reserve  your  own  liberty  of 
choice,  so  as  to  clearly  demonstrate  to  him  that  you 
are  exercising  choice,  and  in  doing  so,  are  well  within 
your  own  rights. 

There  is  one  simple  outward  observation  which 
greatly  assists  in  the  inculcation  of  these  funda- 
mental truths — that  is  the  habit  of  using  a  low  voice  in 
speaking,  especially  when  issuing  a  command  or  ad- 
ministering a  rebuke.  A  loud,  insistent  voice  prac- 
tically insures  rebellion.  This  is  because  the  low  voice 
means  that  you  have  command  of  yourself,  the  loud 
voice  that  you  have  lost  it.  The  child  submits  to  a 
controlled  will,  but  not  to  one  as  uncontrolled  as  his 
own.  Tn  both  cases  he  follows  your  example.  If  you 
ar«-  self-controlled,  he  tends  to  become  so;  if  you  are 


of  Words 


CHARACTER    BUILDING.  67 

excited   and   angry,   he  also   becomes   so,   or   if  he   is 
already  so,  his  excitement  and  anger  increases. 

While  most  mothers  rely  altogether  too  much  upon 
speech  as  a  means  of  explaining  life  to  the  child,  yet  it 
must  be  admitted  that  speech  has  a  great  function  to 
perform  in  this  regard.  Nevertheless  it  is  well  to  bear 
in  mind  that  it  is  not  true  that  a  child  will  always  do 
what  you  tell  him  to  do,  no  matter  how  plain  you  may 
tell  him,  nor  how  perfectly  you  may  explain  your  rea- 
sons. 

In  the  first  place,  speech  means  less  to  children  than  Limitations 
to  grown  persons.  Each  word  has  a  smaller  content 
of  experience.  The}-  cannot  get  the  full  force  of  the 
most  clear  and  eloquent  statement.  Therefore  all 
speech  must  be  reinforced  by  example,  and  by  as  many 
forms  of  concrete  illustrations  as  can  be  commanded. 
Each  necessary  truth  should  enter  the  child's  mind 
by  several  channels  ;  hearing,  eye-sight,  motor  activity 
should  all  be  cailed  upon.  Many  truths  may  be 
dramatized.  This,  where  the  mother  is  clever  enough 
to  employ  it,  is  the  surest  method  of  appeal.  But  in 
any  case,  speech  alone  must  not  be  relied  upon,  nor 
the  child  considered  a  hopeless  case  who  does  not 
respond  to  it. 

Denunciatory  speech  especially  needs  wise  regulation. 
As  Richter  says,  "What  is  to  be  followed  as  a  rule  of 
prudence,  yea,  of  justice,  toward  grown-up  people, 
should  be  much  more  observed  toward  children,  name- 


68  STUDY  Of  CHILD  LIFE. 

ly,  that  one  should  never  judgingly  declare,  for  in- 
stance, "You  are  a  liar,"  or  even,  "You  are  a  bad  boy," 
instead  of  saying',  "You  have  told  an  untruth,"  or  "You 
have  done  wrong."  For  since  the  power  to  command 
yourself  implies  at  the  same  time  the  power  of  obey- 
ing, man  feels  a  minute  after  his  fault  as  free  as  Socra- 
tes, and  the  branding  mark  of  his  nature,  not  his  deed, 
must  seem  to  him  blameworthy  of  punishment. 

"To  this  must  be  added  that  every  individual's  wrong 
actions,  owing  to  his  inalienable  sense  of  a  moral  aim 
and  hope,  seem  to  him  only  short,  usurped  inter- 
regnums of  the  devil,  or  comets  in  the  uniform  solar 
system.  The  child,  consequently,'  under  such  a  moral 
annihilation,  feels  the  wrong-doing  of  others  more 
than  his  own  ;  and  this  all  the  more  because,  in  him, 
want  of  reflection  and  the  general  warmth  of  his  feel- 
ings, represent  the  injustice  of  others  in  a  more  ugly 
light  than  his  own." 
Example  If  any  one  desires  to  prove  the  superior  force  of 
precept  example  over  precept,  let  him  try  teaching  a  baby  to 
say  "Thank  you"  or  "Please,"  merely  by  being  scrupu- 
lously careful  to  say  these  things  to  the  baby  on  all  fit 
occasions.  No  one  has  taken  the  statistics  of  the  num- 
ber of  times  every  small  child  is  exhorted  to  perfect 
himself  in  this  particular  observance ;  but  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  in  the  United  States  alone  these  injunctions 
are  spoken  something  like  a  million  times  a  day  and 
all  quite  unnecessarily.  The  child  will  say  "Please" 
and  "Thank   vou"  without  being  told  to  do  so,  if  he 


to  Children 


CHARACTER    BUILDING.  69 

merely   has  his   attention   called   to   the   fact   that  the. 
people  around  him  all  use  these  phrases. 

The  truth  is,  too  many  parents  forget  to  speak  these  p0iiteness 
agreeable  words  whenever  they  ask  favors  of  their 
own  children  ;  so  die  force  of  their  example  is  marred. 
What  you  do  to  the  child  himself,  remember,  always 
outweighs  anything  you  do  to  others  before  him.  This 
is  the  reason  why  it  is  necessary  that  you  should  ac- 
knowledge your  own  shortcomings  to  the  child,  if  you 
expect  him  to  acknowledge  his  to  you.  It  is  also 
necessary  sometimes  to  point  out  clearly  the  kind  and 
considerate  things  that  you  are  in  the  habit  of  doing 
to  others,  lest  the  untrained  mind  of  the  young  child 
may  fail  to  see  and  so  miss  the  force  of  your  example. 

But  in  thus  revealing  your  own  good  deeds  to  the 
child,  remember  the  motive,  and  reveal  them  only  (a) 
when  he  cannot  perceive  them  of  himself,  (b)  when 
he  needs  to  perceive  them  in  order  that  his  own  con- 
duct may  be  influenced  by  them,  and  (c)  at  the  time 
when  he  is  most  likely  to  appreciate  them.  This  latter 
requirement  precludes  you  from  announcing  your  own 
righteousness  when  he  is  naughty,  and  compels  you, 
of  course,  to  go  directly  against  your  native  impulse, 
which  is  to  mention  your  deeds  of  sacrifice  and  kind- 
ness only  when  you  are  angry  and  mean  to  reproach 
him  with  them.  When  you  tell  him  how  devoted  you 
have  been  at  some  moment  when  you  are  both  thor- 
oughly angry,  he  is  in  danger  of  either  denying  or 
hating  your  devotion  ;  but  when  you  refer  to  it  tender- 


7o 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


Live  with 

Your 

Children 


lv,  and,  as  your  heart  will  then  prompt  you,  modestly, 
at  some  loving  moment,  he  will  give  it  recognition, 
and  be  moved  to  love  goodness  more  devotedly  because 
you  embody  it. 

Another  important  rule  is  this :  Do  not  make  too 
many  rules.  Some  women  are  like  legislatures  in  per- 
petual session.  The  child  who  is  confused  and  tantal- 
ized by  the  constant  succession  of  new  laws  learns 
presently  to  disregard  them,  and  to  regulate  his  life 
according  to  certain  deductions  of  his  own — sometimes 
surprisingly  wise  and  politic  deductions.  The  way  to 
cure  yourself  of  this  law-making  habit  is  to  stop  think- 
ing of  every  little  misdeed  as  the  beginning  of  a  great 
wrong.  It  is  very  likely  an  accident  and  a  combina- 
tion of  circumstances  such  as  may  not  happen  again. 
To  treat  misdemeanors  which  are  not  habitual  nor  char- 
acteristic as  evanescent  is  the  best  way  to  make  them 
evanescent.  They  should  not  be  allowed  to  enter  too 
deeply  into  your  consciousness  or  into  that  of  your 
child. 

In  order  to  be  able  to  discriminate  between  accidental 
wrong-doing,  and  that  which  is  the  first  symptom  of 
wrong-thinking,  you  must  be  in  close  touch  with  your 
children.  This  brings  us  to  Froebel's  great  motto, 
"Come,  let  us  live  with  our  children  !"  This  means 
that  you  are  not  merely  to  talk  with  your  child, 
to  hear  from  his  lips  what  he  is  doing,  but  to  live  so 
closely  with  him,  that  in  most  cases  you  know  what 


+tWt-'   TltL   CHILI)  DElrELOP&\  71 

he  is  doing-  without  any  need  of  his  telling  you.  When, 
however,  he  does  tell  you  something  which  happened 
in  the  school  play-ground  or  otherwise  out  of  the  range 
of  your  knowledge,  be  careful  not  to  moralize  over 
it.  Make  yourself  as  agreeable  a  secret-keeper  as  his 
best  friend  of  his  own  age ;  let  your  moralizing  be  so 
rare  that  it  is  effective  for  that  very  reason.  If  the 
occasion  needs  moral  reflection  at  all — and  that  seldom 
happens — the  wise  way  is  to  lead  the  child  to  do  his 
own  reflecting ;  to  arrive  at  his  own  conclusions,  and  if 
you  must  lead  him,  by  all  means  do  so  as  invisibly 
as  possible.  For  the  most  part  it  is  safe  to  take  the 
confessions  lightly,  and  well  to  keep  your  own  mind 
young  by  looking  at  things  from  the  boy's  point  of 
view. 

If,  however,  there  is  to  be  perfect  confidence  be- 
tween you,  the  one  subject  which  is  usually  kept  out 
of  speech  between  mothers  and  children  must  be  no 
forbidden  subject  between  them ;  you  must  not  refuse 
to  answer  questions  about  the  mystery  of  sex.  If  you 
are  not  the  fit  person  to  teach  your  child  these  impor- 
tant facts,  who  is  ?  Certainly  not  the  school-mates  and 
servants  from  whom  he  is  likely  to  learn  them  if  you 
refuse  to  furnish  the  information.  Usually  it  is  suf- 
ficient simply  to  answer  the  child's  honest  questions 
honestly ;  but  any  mother  who  finds  herself  unable  to 
cope  with  this  simple  matter  in  this  simple  spirit,  will 
find  help  in  Margaret  Morley's  "Song  of  Life,"  in  the 


72  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

Wood-Allen  Publications,  and  the  books  of  the  Rev. 
Sylvanus  Stall.* 

In  respect  to  these  matters  more  than  in  respect  to 
others,  but  also  in  respect  to  all  matters,  children  often 
do  not  know  that  they  are  doing  wrong,  even  when  it 
it  very  difficult  for  parents  to  believe  that  they  do  not 
intend  wrong-doing.  As  we  have  seen  from  our 
analysis  of  truthfulness,  the  child  may  very  often  lie 
without  a  qualm  of  conscience,  and  he  may  still  more 
readily  break  the  unwritten  rules  of  courtesy,  asking 
abrupt  and  even  cruel  questions  of  strangers,  and  haul 
the  family  skeleton  out  of  its  closet  at  critical  moments. 
Such  things  cannot  be  wholly  guarded  against,  even 
by  the  exercise  of  the  utmost  wisdom,  but  the  habit  of 
reasoning  things  out  for  himself  is  the  greatest  help 
a  child  can  have. 

The  formation  of  the  bent  of  the  child's  nature  as 
a  whole  is  a  matter  of  unconscious  education,  but  as 
he  grows  in  the  power  to  reason,  conscious  education 
must  direct  his  mental  activity.  It  is  not  enough  for 
him,  as  it  is  not  enough  for  any  grown  person,  to  do 
the  best  that  he  knows  ;  he  must  learn  to  know  the  best. 
The  word  righteousness  itself  means  right-wiseness, 
i.  e.,  right  knowingness. 

To  quote  Froebel  again,  "In  order,  therefore,  to  im- 
part true,  genuine  firmness  to  the  natural  will-activity 

"What  a  Young  Girl  Ought  to  Know"  and  "What  a  Young 
Woman  Ought  to  Know. '  by  Dr.  Mary  Wood  Allen. 

"What  a  Young  Boy  Ought  to  Know."  "What  a  Young  Man 
Ought  to  Know,"  by  Rev.  Sylvanus  Stall. 


(  HARACTER    BUILDING.  7.? 

of  the  boy,  all  the  activities  of  the  buy,  his  entire  will 
should  proceed  from  and  have  reference  to  the  develop- 
ment, cultivation,  and  representation  of  the  internal. 
Instruction  in  example  and  in  words,  which  later  on 
become  precept  and  example,  furnishes  the  means  for 
this.  Neither  example  alone,  nor  words  will  do  ;  not 
example  alone,  for  it  is  particular  and  special,  and  the 
word  is  needed  to  give  the  particular  individual  exam- 
ple universal  applicability ;  not  words  alone,  for  exam- 
ple is  needed  to  interpret  and  explain  the  word,  which 
is  general,  spiritual,  and  of  many  meanings. 

"But  instruction  and  example  alone  and  in  them- 
selves are  not  sufficient ;  they  must  meet  a  good  pure 
heart  and  this  is  the  outcome  of  proper  educational 
influences  in  childhood." 

Lest  these  directions  should  seem  to  demand  an  al-  Moral 
most  superhuman  degree  of  control  and  wisdom  on  the 
part  of  the  mother,  remember  that  moral  precocity  is 
as  much  to  be  guarded  against  as  mental  precocity. 
Remember  that  you  are  neither  required  to  be  a  per- 
fect mother  nor  to  rear  a  perfect  child.  As  Spencer 
remarks,  a  perfect  child  in  this  imperfect  world  would 
be  sadly  out  of  joint  with  the  times,  would  indeed  be 
a  martyr.  If  your  basic  principles  are  right  and  if 
your  child  has  before  him  the  daily  and  hourly  spectacle 
of  a  mother  who  is  trying  to  conform  herself  to  high 
standards,  he  will  grow  as  fast  as  it  is  safe  for  him 
to  grow.  Spencer  says  :  "Our  higher  moral  faculties 
like    our    higher    intellectual    ones,    are    comparatively 


74  STUDY  0J;  CHILD  LIFE. 

complex.  As  a  consequence  they  are  both  compara- 
tively late  in  their  evolution,  and  with  the  one  as  with 
the  other,  a  very  early  activity  produced  by  stimula- 
tion will  be  at  the  expense  of  the  future  character. 
Hence  the  not  uncommon  fact  that  those  who  during 
childhood  were  instanced  as  models  of  juvenile  good- 
ness, by  and  by  undergo  some  disastrous  and  seemingly 
inexplicable  change,  and  end  by  being  not  above  but 
below  par;  while  relatively  exemplary  men  are  often 
the  issue  of  a  childhood  not  so  promising. 

"Be  content,  therefore,  with  moderate  measures  and 
moderate  results,  constantly  bearing  in  mind  the  fact 
that  the  higher  morality,  like  the  higher  intelligence, 
must  be  reached  by  a  slow  growth ;  and  you  will  then 
have  more  patience  with  those  imperfections  of  nature 
which  your  child  hourly  displays.  You  will  be  less 
prone  to  constant  scolding,  and  threatening,  and  for- 
bidding, by  which  many  parents  induce  a  chronic  irri- 
tation, in  a  foolish  hope  that  they  will  thus  make  their 
children  what  they  should  be." 
Rules  in  In  conclusion,  the  rules  that  mav  be  safelv  followed 

Character 

Building      in  character-building  may  be  summed  up  thus : 

(i)  Recognize  that  the  object  of  your  training  is 
to  help  the  child  to  love  righteousness.  Command  lit- 
tle and  then  use  positive  commands  rather  than  prohi- 
bitions.    Use  "do"  rather  than  "don't." 

(2)  Make  right-doing  delightful. 

(3)  Establish  Fichte's  doctrine  of  right,  see  page 
64. 


CHARACTER    BUILDING.  75 

(4)  Teach  by  example  rather  than  precept.  There- 
fore respect  the  child's  rights  as  you  wish  him  to  re- 
spect yours. 

(5)  Use  a  low  voice,  especially  in  commanding  or 
rebuking. 

(6)  Tn  chiding,  remember  Richter's  rule  and  re- 
buke the  sin  and  not  the  sinner. 

(7)  Confess  your  own  misdeeds,  by  this  means  and 
others  securing  the  confidence  of  your  children. 

Finally,  remember  that  this  is  an  imperfect  world, 
you  are  an  imperfect  mother,  and  the  best  results 
you  can  hope  for  are  likely  to  be  imperfect.  But  the 
results  may  be  so  founded  upon  eternal  principles  as 
to  tend  continually  to  give  place  to  better  and  better 
results. 


PLAY 

Although  Froebel  is  best  known  as  the  educator  who 
first  took  advantage  of  play  as  a  means  of  education, 
he  was  not,  in  reality,  the  first  to  recoginze  the  high 
value  of  this  spontaneous  activity.  He  was  indeed  the 
first  to  put  this  recognition  into  practice  and  to  use  the 
force  generated  during  play  to  help  the  child  to  a  high- 
er state  of  knowledge. 

But  before  him  Plato  said  that  the  plays  of  children 
have  the  mightiest  influence  on  the  maintenance  or  the 
non-maintenance  of  laws  ;  that  during  the  first  three 
years  the  child  should  be  made  "cheerful"  and  "kind" 
by  having  sorrow  and  fear  and  pain  kept  away  from 
him  and  by  soothing  him  with  music  and  rhythmic 
movements. 

Aristotle  held  that  children  until  they  were  five  years 
old  "should  be  taught  nothing,  not  even  necessary  la- 
bor, lest  it  hinder  growth,  but  should  be  accustomed 
to  use  so  much  motion  as  to  avoid  an  indolent  habit 
of  body,  and  this,"  he  added,  "can  be  acquired  by 
various  means,  among  others  by  play,  which  ought  to 
be  neither  illiberal,  nor  laborious,  nor  lazy." 

Luther  rebukes  those  who  despise  the  plays  of  chil- 
dren and  says  that  Solomon  did  not  prohibit  scholars 
from  play  at  the  proper  time.  Fenelon,  Locke.  Schil- 
ler, and  Richter  all  admit  the  deep  significance  of  this 
universal  instinct  of  youth. 

Preyer,  speaking  not  as  a  philosopher  or  educator, 
but  as  a  scientist,  mentions   "the  new  kinds  of  pleas- 


PLAY.  77 

urable  sensations  with  some  admixture  of  intellectual 
elements,"  which  are  gained  when  the  child  gradually 
begins  to  play.  Much  that  is  called  play  he  considers 
true  experimenting,  especially  when  the  child  is  seen  to 
be  studying  the  changes  produced  by  his  own  activity, 
as  when  he  tears  paper  into  small  bits,  shakes  a  buncli 
of  keys,  opens  and  shuts  a  box,  plays  with  sand,  and 
empties  bottles,  and  throws  stones  into  the  water.  "The 
zeal  with  which  these  seemingly  aimless  movements 
are  executed  is  remarkable.  The  sense  of  gratification 
must  be  very  great,  and  is  principally  due  to  the  feeling 
of  his  own  power,  and  of  being  the  cause  of  the  various 
changes." 

All  these  authorities  are  quoted  here  in  o^der  to 
show  that  the  practical  recognition  of  play  which  ob- 
tains among  the  advanced  educators  to-day  is  not  a 
piece  of  sentimentalism,  as  stern  critics  sometimes  de- 
clare, but  the  united"  opinion  of  some  of  the  wisest 
minds  of  this  and  former  ages.  As  Froebel  says,  "Play 
and  speech  constitute  the  element  in  which  the  child 
lives.  At  this  stage  (the  first  three  years  of  childhood) 
he  imparts  to  everything  the  virtues  of  sight,  feeling, 
and  speech.  He  feels  the  unity  between  himself  and 
the  whole  external  world  "'  And  Froebel  conceives  it 
to  be  of  the  profoundest  importance  that  this  sense  of 
unity  should  not  be  disturbed.  He  finds  that  play  is 
the  most  spiritual  activity  of  man  at  this  age,  "and  at 
the  same  time  typical  of  human  life  as  a  whole — of  the 


78  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

inner,  hidden,  natural  life  of  man  and  all  things; 
it  gives,  therefore,  joy,  freedom,  contentment,  inner 
and  outer  rest,  peace  with  the  world ;  it  holds  the 
sources  of  all  that  is  good.  The  child  that  plays  thor- 
oughly until  physical  fatigue  forbids  will  surely  be  a 
thorough,  determined  man,  capable  of  self-sacrifice  for 
the  promotion  and  welfare  of  himself  and  others." 

Lhit  all  play  does  not  deserve  this  high  praise.  It 
fits  only  the  play  under  right  conditions.  Fortunately 
these  are  such  that  every  mother  can  command  them. 
There  are  three  essentials:  (i)  Freedom,  (2)  Sym- 
pathy, (3)  Right  materials. 

(1)  Freedom  is  the  first  essential,  and  here  the 
child  of  poverty  often  has  the  advantage  of  the 
child  of  wealth.  There  are  few  things  in  the  pover- 
ty-stricken home  too  good  for  him  to  play  with  ;  in  its 
narrow  quarters,  he  becomes,  perforce,  a  part  of  all 
domestic  activity.  He  learns  the  uses  of  household 
utensils,  and  his  play  merges  by  imperceptible  degrees 
into  true,  healthful  work. 

In  the  home  of  wealth,  however,  there  is  no  such 
freedom,  no  such  richness  of  opportunity.  The  child 
of  wealth  has  plenty  of  toys,  but  few  real  things  to 
play  with.  He  is  shut  out  of  the  common  activity  of 
the  family,  and  shut  in  to  the  imitation  activity  of  his 
nursery.  He  never  gets  his  small  hands  on  realities, 
but  in  his  elegant  clothes  is  confined  to  the  narrow 
conventional  round  that  is  falsely  supposed  to  be  good 
for  him. 


PLAY,  79 

Froebel  insists  upon  the  importance  of  the  child's 
dress  being  loose,  serviceable,  and  inconspicuous,  so 
that  he  may  play  as  much  as  possible  without  con- 
sciousness of  the  restrictions  of  dress.  The  playing 
child  should  also  have,  as  we  have  noticed  in  the  first 
section,  the  freedom  of  the  outside  world.  This  does 
not  mean  merely  that  he  should  go  out  in  his  baby- 
buggy,  or  take  a  ride  in  the  park,  but  that  he  should 
be  able  to  play  out-of-doors,  to  creep  on  the  ground, 
to  be  a  little  open-air  savage,  and  play  with  nature  as 
he  finds  it. 

(2)  Sympathy  is  much  more,  likely  to  rise  spon- 
taneously in  the  mother's  breast  for  the  child's  troubles 
than  for  the  child's  joys.  She  will  stop  to  take  him 
up  and  pet  him  when  he  is  hurt,  no  matter  how  busy 
she  is,  but  she  too  often  considers  it  waste  of  time 
to  enter  into  his  plays  with  him  ;  yet  he  needs  sympathy 
in  joy  as  much  as  in  sorrow.  Her  presence,  her  inter- 
est in  what  he  is  doing,  doubles  his  delight  in  it  and 
doubles  its  value  to  him.  Moreover,  it  offers  her  op- 
portunity for  that  touch  and  direction  now  and  then, 
which  may  transform  a  rambling  play,  without  much 
sequence  or  meaning,  into  a  consciously  useful  per- 
formance, a  dramatization,  perhaps,  of  some  of  the 
child's  observations,  or  an  investigation  into  the  na- 
ture of  things. 

(3)  Right  Material.  Even  given  freedom  and 
sympathy,  the  child  needs  something  more  in  order  to 


Sympathy 


80  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

play  well :  he  needs  the  right  materials.  The  best  ma- 
terials are  those  that  are  common  to  him  and  to  the 
rest  of  the  world,  far  better  than  expensive  toys  that 
mark  him  apart  from  the  world  of  less  fortunate  chil- 
dren. Such  toys  are  not  in  any  way  desirable,  and 
they  may  even  be  harmful.  What  he  needs  are 
various  simple  arrangements  of  the  four  elements- 
earth,  air,  fire,  and  water. 
Mud-pies  (1)      Earth.     The  child  has  a  noted  affinity  for  it, 

and  he  is  specially  happy  when  he  has  plenty  of  it  on 
hands,  face,  and  clothes.  The  love  of  mud-pies  is  uni- 
versal ;  children  of  all  nationalities  and  of  all  degrees 
of  civilization  delight  in  it.  No  activity  could  be  more 
wholesome, 
sand  Next  to  mud  comes  sand.     It  is  cleaner  in  appear- 

ance and  can  be  brought  into  the  house.     A  tray  of 
moistened   sand,   set   upon   a   low   table,  should  be   in 
every  nursery,  and  the  sand  pile  in  every  yard, 
ciay  Clay  is  more  difficult  to  manage  indoors,  because  it 

gets  dry  and  sifts  all  about  the  house,  but  if  a  corner 
of  the  cellar,  where  there  is  a  good  light,  can  be  given 
up  for  a  strong  table  and  a  jar  of  clay  mixed  with  some 
water,  it  will  be  found  a  great  resource  for  rain}' 
days.  If  modeling  aprons  of  strong  material,  but- 
toned with  one  button  at  the  neck,  be  hung  near  the  jar 
of  clay,  the  children  may  work  in  this  material  with- 
out spoiling  their  clothes.  Clay-modeling  is  an  excel- 
lent form  of  manual  training,  developing  without  for- 
cing the  delicate  muscles  of  the  fingers  and  wrists,  and 


PLAY. 


81 


giving  wide  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  the  imagin- 
ation. 

Earth  may  be  played  with  in  still  another  way.  Chil- 
dren should  dig  in  it;  for  all  pass  through  the  digging 

stage  and  this  should  he  given  free  swing.     It  develops 
their  muscles  and  keeps  them  busy  at  helpful  and  COn- 


Digging 


PATTERN    OF    A    MODELING    APRON. 


structive  work.  They  may  dig  a  well,  make  a  cave,  or 
a  pond,  or  burrow  underground  and  make  tunnels  like 
a  mole.  Give  them  spades  and  a -piece  of  ground  they 
can  do  with  as  they  like,  dress  them  in  overalls,  and 
it  will  be  long  before  you  are  asked  to  think  of  another 
amusement  for  them. 

In  still  another  way  the  earth  may  be  utilized,  for 
children  may  make  gardens  of  it.  Indeed,  there  are 
those   who   say   that   no  child's  education  is  complete 


8a  STUDY  OF  CHILL)  LIFE. 

until  he  has  had  a  garden  of  his  own  and  grown  in  it 
all  sorts  of  seeds  from  pansies  to  potatoes.  But  a  gar- 
den is  too  much  for  a  young  child  to  care  for  all  alone. 
He  needs  the  help,  advice,  and  companionship  of  some 
older  person.  Yon  must  he  careful,  however,  to  give 
help  only  when  it  is  really  desired ;  and  careful  also 
not  to  let  him  feel  that  the  garden  is  a  task  to  which 
he  is  driven  daily,  but  a  joy  that  draws  him. 

(2)  The  Air.  The  next  important  plaything  is  the 
air.  The  kite  and  the  balloon  are  only  two  instru- 
ments to  help  the  child  play  with  it.  Little  windmills 
made  of  colored  paper  and  stuck  by  means  of  a  pin  at 
the  end  of  a  whittled  stick,  make  satisfactory  toys. 
One  of  their  great  advantages  is  that  even  a  very  young 
child  can  make  them  for  himself.  Blowing  soap-bub- 
bles is  another  means  of  playing  with  air.  By  giving 
the  children  woolen  mittens  the  bubbles  may  be  caught 
and  tossed  about  as  well  as  blown. 

(3)  Water.  Perhaps  the  very  first  thing  he  learns 
to  play  with  is  water.  Almost  before  he  knows  the 
use  of  his  hands  and  legs  he  plays  with  water  in  his 
bath,  and  sucks  his  sponge  with  joy,  thus  feeling  the 
water  with  his  chief  organs  of  touch,  his  mouth  and 
tongue.  A  few  months  later  he  will  be  glad  to  pour 
water  out  of  a  tin  cup.  Even  when  he  is  two  or  three 
years  old,  he  may  be  amused  by  the  hour,  by  dressing 
him  in  a  woolen  gown,  with  his  sleeves  rolled  high, 
and  setting  him  down  before  a  big  bowl  or  his  own 
bath-tub  half    full    of   warm    water.     To  this   mav   be 


PLAY.  83 

added  a  sponge,  a  tin  cup,  a  few  bits  of  wood,  and  sonic 
paper.  They  should  not  be  given  all  at  once,  but  one 
at  a  time,  the  child  allowed  to  exhaust  the  possibilities 
of  each  before  another  is  added.  Still  later  he  may 
be  given  the  bits  of  soap  left  after  a  cake  of  soap  is 
used  up.  Give  him  also  a  few  empty  bottles  or  bowls 
and  let  him  put  them  away  with  a  solid  mass  of  soap- 
suds in  them  and  see  what  will  happen.  When  he  is 
older — past  the  period  of  putting  everything  in  his 
mouth — he  may  be  given  a  few  bits  of  bright  ribbons, 
petals  of  artificial  flowers,  or  any  bright  colored  bits  of 
cloth  which  can  color  the  water. 

Children  love  to  sprinkle  the  grass  with  the  hose  or 
to  water  the  flowers  with  the  sprinkling  can.  They 
enjoy  also  the  metal  fishes,  ducks,  and  boats  which  may 
be  drawn  about  in  the  water  by  means  of  a  magnet. 
Presently  they  reach  the  stage  when  they  must  have 
toy-boats,  and  next  they  long  to  go  into  real  boats  and 
go  rowing  and  sailing.  They  want  to  fish,  wade,  swim, 
and  skate. 

Some  of  these  pastimes  are  dangerous,  but  they  are 
sure  to  be  indulged  in  at  some  time  or  other,  with  or  Pastimes 
without  permission.  There  never  grew  a  child  to 
sturdy  manhood  who  was  successfully  kept  away  from 
water.  The  wise  mother,  then,  will  not  forbid  this 
play,  but  will  do  her  best  to  regulate  it,  to  make  it 
safe.  She  will  think  out  plans  for  permitting  children 
to  go  swimming  in  a  safe  place  with  some  older  per- 
son.    She  will  let  them  go  wading,  and  at  holidav  time 


Dangerous 


84  STUDY  OF   CHILD   LIFE. 

will  take  them  boat-riding.  If  she  permits  as  much 
activity  in  these  respects  as  possible,  her  refusal  when 
it  does  come  will  be  respected ;  and  the  child  will  not, 
unless  perhaps  in  the  first  bitterness  of  disappointment, 
think  her  unfriendly  and  fussy.  Above  all,  he  is  not 
likely  to  try  to  deceive  her,  to  run  off  and  take  a 
swim  on  the  sly,  and  thus  fall  into  true  danger. 

(4)  Fire  is  another  inevitable  plaything.  Miss 
Shinn  reports  that  the  first  act  of  her  little  niece  that 
showed  the  dawn  of  voluntary  control  of  the  muscles 
was  the  clinging  of  her  eyes  to  the  flame  of  a  candle, 
at  the  end  of  the  second  week.  The  sense  of  light  and 
the  pleasure  derived  from  it  is  one  of  the  chief  in- 
centives to  a  baby's  intellectual  development.  But 
since  fire  is  dangerous  the  child  must  be  taught  this 
fact  as  quickly  and  painlessly  as  possible.  He  will 
probably  have  to  be  burned  once  before  he  really  under- 
stands it,  but  by  watching  you  can  make  this  pain  very 
small  and  slight,  barely  sufficient  to  give  the  child  a 
wholesome  fear  of  playing  with  unguarded  fire.  For 
instance,  show  that  the  lamp  globe  is  hot.  It  is  not  hot 
enough  to  injure  him,  but  quite  hot  enough  to  be  un- 
pleasant to  his  sensitive  nerves.  Put  your  own  hand 
on  the  lamp  and  draw  it  away  with  a  sharp  cry,  saying 
warningly,  "Hot,  hot!"  Do  not  put  his  hand  on  the 
lamp,  but  let  him  put  it  there  himself  and  then  be  very 
sympathetic  over  the  result.  Usually  one  such  lesson 
is  sufficient.  Only  do  not  permit  yourself  to  call  every- 
thing hot  which  you  do  not  want  him  to  touch.     He 


PLAY.  85 

will   soon    discover   that   you   are   untruthful   and   will 
never  again  trust  you  so  fully. 

Under  proper  regulations,  however,  fire  may  be  Bonfires 
played  with  safely.  Bonfires  with  some  older  person 
in  attendance  are  safe  enough  and  prevent  unlawful 
bonfires  in  dangerous  places.  The  rule  should  be  that 
none  of  the  children  may  play  with  fire  except  with 
permission  ;  and  then  that  permission  should  be  grant- 
ed as  often  as  possible  that  the  children  may  be  en- 
couraged to  ask  for  it.  A  stick  smouldering  at  one 
end  and  waved  about  in  circles  and  ellipses  is  not 
dangerous  when  elders  are  by,  but  it  is  dangerous 
if  played  with  on  the  sly.  Playing  with  fire  on  the  sly 
is  the  most  dangerous  thing  a  child  can  do,  and  the 
only  way  to  prevent  it  is  to  permit  him  to  play  with 
fire  in  the  open.  A  beautiful  game  can  be  made  from 
a  number  of  Christmas  tree  candles  of  various  colors 
and  a  bowl  of  water.  The  candles  are  lighted  and  the 
wax  dropped  into  the  water,  making  little  colored  cir- 
cles which  float  about.  These  can  be  linked  together 
in  such  a  fashion  as  to  form  patterns  which  may  be 
lifted  out  on  sheets  of  paper. 

The  magic  lantern  is  an  innocent  and  comparatively 

1  r  '  Magic 

cheap  means  of  playing  with  light.     If  it  is  well  taken      Lantern 
care  of  and  fresh  slides  added  from  time  to  time  it  can 
he  made  a  source  of  pleasure  for  years.     Taek-o'-lan- 
terns  are  great  fun,  and  when  pumpkins  are  not  avail- 
able, oranges  may  be  used  instead. 

Besides    these   elemental   playthings    the   child   gets 


86 


STi'D)'  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


Rhythmic 
Movements 


Songs 


much  valuable  pleasure  out  of  the  rhythmic  use  of  his 
own  muscles.  All  such  plays  Plato  thought  should  be 
regulated  by  music,  and  with  this  Froebel  agreed,  but 
in  the  household  this  is  often  impossible.  The  chil- 
dren must  indulge  in  many  movements  when  there  is 
no  one  about  who  has  leisure  to  make  music  for  them. 
Still,  when  they  come  to  the  quarrelsome  age,  a  few 
minutes'  rhythmic  play  to  the  sound  of  music  will  be 
found  to  harmonize  the  whole  group  wonderfully. 
For  this  purpose  the  ordinary  hippity-hop,  fast  or  slow 
according  to  the  music,  is  sufficient.  It  is  as  if  the 
regulation  of  the  body  to  the  laws  of  harmony  re- 
acted upon  minds  and  nerves.  Such  an  exercise  is 
particularly  valuable  just  before  bed-time.  The  chil- 
dren go  to  sleep  then  with  their  minds  under  the  influ- 
ence of  harmony  and  wake  in  the  morning  inclined  to 
be  peaceful  and  happy. 

A  book  of  Kindergarten  songs,  such  as  Mrs.  Gay- 
nor's  ''Songs  of  the  Child  World"  and  Eleanor 
Smith's  "Songs  for  the  Children,"  ought  to  be  in  every 
household,  and  the  mother  ought  to  familiarize  herself 
with  a  dozen  or  so  of  these  perfectly  simple  melodies. 
Of  course  the  children  must  learn  them  with  her. 
When  once  this  has  been  done  she  has  a  valuable 
means  of  amusing  them  and  bringing  them  within  her 
control  at  any  time.  She  may  hum  one  of  the  songs 
or  play  it.  The  children  must  guess  what  it  is  and 
then  act  out  their  guess  in  pantomime,  so  that  she  can 
see  what  they  mean.     Perhaps  it  is  a  windmill  song  ; 


PLAY.  87 

their  arms  fly  around  and  around  in  time  to  the  music, 
now  fast,  now  slow.  Perhaps  it  is  a  Spring  song ;  the 
children  are  birds  building  their  nests.  Other  songs 
turn  them  into  shoemakers,  galloping  horses,  or  sol- 
diers. 

Dramatic  plays,  whether  simple,  like  this,  or  elabo- 
rate, are,  as  Goethe  shows  in  Wilhelm  Mcister,  of  the 
greatest  possible  educational  advantage.  In  them  the 
child  expresses  his  ideas  of  the  world  about  him  and 
becomes  master  of  his  own  ideas.  He  acts  out  whatever 
he  has  heard  or  seen.  He  acts  out  also  whatever  he  is 
puzzling  about,  and  by  making  the  terms  of  his  prob- 
lem clear  to  his  consciousness  usually  solves  it. 

As  for  dancing,  Richter  exclaims :  "I  know  not  Dancing 
whether  I  should  most  deprecate  children's  balls  or 
most  praise  children's  dances.  For  the  harmony  con- 
nected with  it  (dancing)  imparts  to  the  affections  and 
the  mind  that  material  order  which  reveals  the  highest, 
and  regulates  the  beat  of  the  pulse,  the  step,  and  even 
the  thought.  Music  is  the  meter  of  this  poetic  move- 
ment, and  is  an  invisible  dance,  as  dancing  is  a  silent 
music.  Finally,  this  also  ranks  among  the  advantages 
of  his  eye  and  heel  pleasure  ;  that  children  with  chil- 
dren, by  no  harder  canon  than  the  musical,  light  as 
sound,  may  be  joined  in  a  rosebud  feast  without  thorns 
or  strife."  The  dances  may  be  of  the  simplest  kind, 
such  as  "Ring  Around  a  Rosy,"  "Here  We  Go,  To  and 
Fro,"  "Old  Dan  Tucker"  and  the  "Virginia  Reel." 
The    old-fashioned    singing    plays,    such    as    "London 


88  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

Bridge,"  "Where  Oats,  Peas,  Beans,  and  Barley 
Grow,"  and  "Pop  Goes  the  Weasel"  have  their  place 
and  value.  Several  collections  of  them  have  been 
made  and  published,  but  usually  quite  enough  material 
may  be  found  for  these  plays  in  the  memories  of  the 
people  of  any  neighborhood. 
Toys  All    these   plays,    it   will    be    noticed,   call    for   very 

simple  and  inexpensive  apparatus,  in  most  cases  for 
no  apparatus  at  all.  Nevertheless  there  is  a  place  for 
toys.  All  children  ought  to  have  a  few,  both  because 
of  the  innocent  pleasure  they  afford  and  because  they 
need  to  have  certain  possessions  which  are  inalienably 
their  own.  A  simple  and  inexpensive  list  of  suitable 
toys  adapted  to  various  ages  is  gi\  en  at  the  end  of  this 
section.  Most  of  them  are  exactly  the  toys  that  parents 
usually  buy.  But  it  will  be  noticed  that  none  of  them 
are  very  elaborate  or  expensive,  and  that  the  patrol 
wagon  is  not  among  them.  This  is  because  the  patrol 
wagon  directly  leads  to  plays  that  are  not  only  un- 
educational  but  positively  harmful  in  their  tendencies. 
The  children  of  a  whole  neighborhood  were  once  led 
into  the  habit  of  committing  various  imitation  crimes 
for  the  sake  of  being  arrested  and  carried  off  in  a  min- 
iature patrol  wagon.  If  any  such  expensive  and  elabo- 
rate toys  are  bought,  it  may  well  be  the  plain  express 
wagon  or  the  hook  and  ladder  and  fire  engine.  The 
first  of  these  leads  to  plays  of  industry,  the  second 
to  those  of  heroism. 


lJLAY.  89 

LIST    OF   TOYS    SUITABLE    FOR    VARIOUS    AGES. 

Ball,  rubber  ring,  soft  animals  and   rag  dulls Before  1   year 

Blocks   and    Bells 1  year 

Small    chair  and    table IV2  years 

Noah's   Ark 2  years 

Picture    books 2  years 

Materials    and    instruments 2  to  3  years 

Carts,   stick-horses,  and  reins 2  y2  to  3  years 

Boats,    ships,    engines,    tin    or     wooden     animals,     dolls, 

dishes,  broom,  spade,  sand-pile,  bucket,    etc 3  years 

Hoop,  games  and  story-books 5  years 


Home 
Kindergarten 


Kindergarten 
Methods 


OCCUPATIONS 

There  are  a  number  of  books  designed  to  teach 
mothers  how  to  carry  the  Kindergarten  occupations 
over  into  the  home ;  but  while  such  books  may  be  help- 
ful in  a  few  cases,  in  most  cases  better  occupations  pre- 
sent themselves  in  the  course  of  the  day's  work.  The 
Kindergarten  occupations  themselves  follow  increasing- 
ly the  order  of  domestic  routine.  For  example,  many 
children  in  the  Kindergarten  make  mittens  out  of  eider- 
down flannel  in  the  Fall,  when  their  own  mothers  are 
knitting  their  mittens,  and  make  little  hoods  either  for 
themselves  or  for  their  dolls.  At  other  periods  they 
put  up  little  glasses  of  preserves  or  jelly,  and  study  the 
industry  of  the  bees  and  the  way  they  put  up  their 
tiny  jars  of  jelly.  Their  attention  is  called  also  to  the 
preparations  that  the  squirrels  and  other  animals  make 
for  winter,  and  to  that  of  the  trees  and  flowers.  In 
other  words,  the  occupations  in  the  Kindergarten  are 
designed  to  bring  the  children  into  conscious  sympathy 
with  the  life  of  nature  and  of  the  home. 

That  mother  who  keeps  this  purpose  in  mind  and 
applies  it  to  the  occupations  that  come  up  naturally  in 
the  course  of  a  day's  work,  will  thereby  bring  the 
Kindergarten  spirit  into  her  own  home  much  more 
truly  than  if  she  invests  in  a  number  of  perforated  sew- 
ing cards  and  colored  strips  of  paper  for  weaving.  Not 
that  there  is  any  harm  in  these  bits  of  apparatus,  pro- 


Helping 


OCCUPATIONS.  91 

vided  that  the  sewing  cards  are  large  and  so  perforated 
as  not  to  task  the  eyes  and  young  fingers  of  the  sewer. 
But  unless  for  some  special  purpose,  such  as  the  mak- 
ing of  a  Christmas  or  birthday  gift,  these  devices  are 
unnecessary  and  better  left  to  the  school,  which  has  less 
richness  of  material  at  hand  than  has  the  home. 

In  allowing  the  children  to  enter  as  workers  into 
the  full  life  of  the  home  several  good  things  are  accom-  M°ther 
plished.  ( 1 )  The  eager  interest  of  the  developing 
mind  is  utilized  to  brighten  those  duties  which  are 
likely  to  remain  permanent  duties.  Nor  does  this  ob- 
servation apply  only  to  girls.  Domestic  obligations 
are  supposed  to  rest  chiefly  upon  them,  but  the  truth 
is  that  boys  need  to  feel  these  obligations  as  keenly  as 
the  girls,  if  they  are  to  grow  into  considerate  and 
helpful  husbands  and  fathers.  The  usual  division  of 
labor  into  forms  falsely  called  masculine  and  feminine 
is,  therefore,  much  to  be  deplored.  Moreover,  at  an 
early  age  children  are  seldom  sex-conscious,  and  any 
precocity  in  this  direction  is  especially  evil  in  its  re- 
sults ;  yet  many  mothers  from  the  beginning  make 
such  a  division  between  what  they  require  of  their  boys 
and  of  their  girls  as  to  force  this  consciousness  upon 
them.  All  kinds  of  work,  then,  should  be  allowed  in 
the  beginning,  however  it  may  differentiate  later  on, 
and  little  boys  as  well  as  little  girls  should  be  taught 
to  take  an  interest  in  sewing,  dish-washing,  sweeping, 
dusting,  and  cooking — in  all  the  forms  of  domestic 
activity. 


g>2  STUD)'  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

This  is  so  far  recognized  among  educators  that  the 
most  progressive  primary  schools  now  teach  cooking 
to  mixed  classes  of  boys  and  girls,  and  also  sewing. 
These  activities  are  recognized  as  highly  educational, 
being,  as  they  are,  interwoven  with  the  history  of  the 
race  and  with  its  daily  needs.  When  they  are  studied 
in  their  full  sum  of  relationship,  they  increase  the 
child's  knowledge  of  both  the  past  and  the  living  world. 

Teaching  (2)     Besides  the  deepening  of  the  child's  interest  in 

that  work  which  in  some  form  or  other  he  will  have 
with  him  always,  is  the  quickening  of  the  mother's  own 
interest  in  what  may  have  come  to  seem  to  her  mere 
daily  drudgery.  Any  woman  who  undertakes  to  per- 
form so  simple  an  operation  as  dish-washing  with  the 
help  of  a  bright  happy  child,  asking  sixteen  questions 
to  the  minute,  will  find  that  common-place  operation 
full  of  possibilities ;  and  if  she  will  answer  all  the 
questions  she  will  probably  find  her  knowledge  strained 
to  the  breaking  point,  and  will  discover  there  is  more 
to  be  known  about  dish-washing  than  she  ever  dreamed 
of  before ;  while  in  cooking,  if  she  will  make  an  effort 
to  look  up  the  science,  history,  and  ethics  involved  in 
the  cooking  and  serving  of  a  very  simple  meal,  she 
will  not  be  likely  to  regard  the  task  as  one  beneath 
her,  but  rather  as  one  beyond  her.  No  one  can  so 
lead  her  away  from  false  conventions  and  narrow 
prejudices  as  a  little  child  whom  she  permits  to  help 
her  and  teach  her. 


OCCUPATIONS. 


93 


(3)  The  child's  spontaneous  joy  in  being  active  and 
in  doing  any  service  is  being  utilized,  as  it  should  be, 
in  the  performance  of  his  daily  duties.  We  have  al- 
ready referred  to  the  fact  that  all  children  in  the  be- 
ginning love  to  work,  and  that  there  must  be  some- 
thing the  matter  with  our  education  since  this  love  is 
so  early  lost  and  so  seldom  reacquired.  If  when 
young  children  wish  to  help  mother  they  are  almost 
invariably  permitted  to  do  so,  and  their  efforts  greeted 
lovingly,  this  delight  in  helpfulness  will  remain  a 
blessing  to  them  throughout  life. 

But  in  order  to  get  these  benefits  from  the  domestic 
activities  two  or  three  simple  rules  must  be  observed. 
(i)  Do  not  go  silently  about  your  work,  expecting 
your  child  to  be  interested  and  to  understand  without 
being  talked  to.  Play  with  him  while  you  work  with 
him  and  see  the  realization  of  youthfulness  that  comes 
to  yourself  while  you  do  it.  Many  tasks  fit  for  child- 
ish hands  are  in  their  nature  too  monotonous  for  child- 
ish minds.  Here  your  imagination  must  come  into 
play  to  rouse  and  excite  his  activity.  For  instance, 
you  are  both  shelling  peas.  When  he  begins  to  be 
tired  you  suggest  to  him,  "Here  is  a  cage  full  of  birds, 
let  us  open  the  door  for  them ;"  or  you  may  tell  a  story 
while  you  work,  but  it  should  be  a  story  about  that  very 
activity,  or  the  child  will  form  the  habit  of  dreaming 
and  dawdling  over  his  work.  Such  stories  may  be 
perfectly  simple  and  even  rather  pointless  and  yet  do 
good  work;  the  whole  object  is  to  keep  the  child's  fly- 


The  Love 
of  Work 


To  Make 
"Helping" 
of  Benefit 


Fatigue 


94  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

away  imagination  turned  upon  the  work  at  hand,  thus 
lending  wings  to  his  thought,  and  lightness  to  his 
fingers.  Moreover,  the  mother  who  talks  with  her  child 
while  working  is  training  in  him  the  habit  of  bright 
unconscious  conversation,  thus  giving  him  a  most  use- 
ful accomplishment.  Making  a  game  or  a  play  out  of 
the  work  is,  of  course,  conducive  to  the  same  good  re- 
sults. When  the  story  or  the  talk  drags,  the  game 
with  its  greater  dramatic  power  may  be  substituted. 

(2)  Qiildren  should  neither  be  allowed  to  work  to 
the  point  of  fatigue  nor  to  stop  when  they  please.  Fa- 
tigue, as  our  latest  investigators  in  physiological  psy- 
chology have  conclusively  proved,  is  productive  of  an 
actual  poison  in  the  blood  and  as  such  is  peculiarly 
harmful  to  young  children.  But  while  work — or  for  that 
matter  play  either — must  never  be  pushed  past  the  point 
of  healthful  fatigue,  it  may  well  be  pushed  past  the 
point  of  spontaneous  interest  and  desire :  the  child  may 
be  happily  persuaded  by  various  hidden  means  to  do  a 
little  more  than  he  is  quite  ready  to  do.  By  this  de- 
vice, which  is  one  of  the  recognized  devices  of  the 
Kindergarten,  mothers  increase  by  imperceptible  de- 
grees that  power  of  attention  which  makes  will  power, 
wining  (3)      Set  the  example  of  willing  industry.     Neither 

let  the  child  conceive  of  you  as  an  impersonal  necessary 
part  of  the  household  machinery,  nor  as  an  unwilling 
martyr  to  household  necessities.  Most  mothers  err  in 
one  or  the  other  of  these  two  directions,  and  many  of 
them  err  in   both :  they  either,    (a)   perform  the  in- 


Industry 


OCCUPATIONS.  95 

numerable  services  of  the  household  so  quietly  and 
steadily  that  the  child  does  not  perceive  the  effort  that 
the  performance  costs  and,  therefore,  as  far  as  his 
consciousness  is  concerned,  is  deprived  of  the  force  of 
his  mother's  example,  or  (b)  they  groan  aloud  over 
their  burdens  and  make  their  daily  martyrdom  vocal. 
Either  way  is  wrong,  for  it  is  a  mistake  not  to  let  a 
child  see  that  your  steady  performance  of  tasks,  which 
cannot  be  always  delightful,  is  a  result  of  self-dis- 
cipline ;  and  it  is  equally  a  mistake  to  let  him  think 
that  this  discipline  is  one  against  which  you  rebel. 
For  in  reality  you  are  so  far  from  being  unwilling  to 
bind  yourself  in  his  service  that  if  he  needed  it  you 
would  promptly  double  and  quadruple  your  exertions. 
It  is  exactly  what  you  do  when  he  is  sick  or  in  danger ; 
and  if  he  dies  the  sorest  ache  of  your  heart  is  the  ache 
of  the  love  that  can  no  longer  be  of  service  to  the  be- 
loved. 

(4)  Remember  that  monotony  is  the  curse  of  labor 
for  both  child  and  adult,  but  that  monotony  cannot  exist 
where  new  intellectual  insights  are  constantly  being 
given.  Therefore,  while  the  daily  round  of  labor, 
shaped  by  the  daily  recurring  demands  for  food, 
warmth,  cleanliness,  and  sleep,  goes  on  without  much 
change,  seize  every  opportunity  to  deepen  the  child's 
perception  of  the  relation  of  this  routine  to  the  order 
of  the  larger  world.  For  instance,  if  a  new  house  is 
being  built  near  by,  visit  it  with  the  children,  comparing 
it  with  your  own  house,  figure  out  whether  it  is  going 


Monotony 


96  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

to  be  easier  to  keep  clean  and  to  warm  than  your  house 
is  and  why.  If  you  need  to  call  in  the  carpenter,  the 
plumber,  the  paper-hanger,  or  the  stoveman,  try  to 
have  him  come  when  the  children  are  at  home,  and  let 
them  satisfy  their  intense  curiosity  as  to  his  work. 
This  knowledge  will  sooner  or  later  be  of  practical 
value,  and  it  is  immediately  of  spiritual  value. 

Beautiful  (5)      Beautify  the  work  as  much  as  possible  by  let- 

ting the  artistic  sense  have  full  play.  This  rule  is  so 
important  that  the  attempt  to  establish  it  in  the  larger 
world  outside  of  the  home  has  given  rise  to  the  move- 
ment known  as  the  arts  and  crafts  movement,  which 
has  its  rise  in  the  perception  that  no  great  art  can  come 
into  existence  among  us  until  the  common  things  of 
daily  living — the  furniture,  the  books,  the  carpets,  the 
chinaware — are  made  to  express  that  creative  joy  in 
the  maker  which  distinguishes  an  artistic  product  from 
an  inartistic  one.  This  creative  joy,  in  howsoever 
small  degree,  may  be  present  in  most  cf  the  things  that 
the  child  docs.  If  he  sets  the  table,  he  may  set  it 
beautifully,  taking  real  pleasure  in  the  coloring  of  the 
china  and  the  shine  of  the  silver  and  glass.  He  ought 
nut  to  be  permitted  to  set  it  untidily  upon  a  soiled  ta- 
blecloth. 

The  Right  (6)     This  is  a  negative  rule,  but  perhaps  the  most 

important  of  all :  do  not  nag.  The  child  who 
is  driven  to  his  work  and  kept  at  it  by  means  of  a 
constant  pressure  of  a  stronger  will  upon  his  own,  is 
deriving  little,  if  any,  benefit  from  it ;  and  as  you  are 


OCCUPATIONS.  97 

not  teaching  him  to  work  for  the  sake  of  his  present 
usefulness,  which  is  small  at  the  best,  but  for  the  sake 
of  his  future  development,  you  are  more  desirous  that 
he  should  perform  a  single  task  in  a  day  in  the  right 
spirit,  than  that  he  should  run  a  dozen  errands  in  the 
wrong  spirit. 

(7)  Besides  a  regular  time  each  day  for  the  per- 
formance of  his  set  share  in  the  household  work,  give 
him  warning  before  the  arrival  of  that  hour.  Children 
have  very  incomplete  notions  of  time ;  they  become 
much  absorbed  in  their  own  play ;  and  therefore  no 
child  under  nine  or  ten  years  of  age  should  be  expected 
to  do  a  given  thing  at  a  given  time  without  warning 
that  the  time  is  at  hand. 

Besides  these  occupations  which  are  truly  part  of  the 
business  of  life  come  any  number  of  other  occupa- 
tions— a  sort  of  a  cross  between  real  play  and  steady 
work,  what  teachers  call  "busy  work" — and  here  the 
suggestions  of  the  Kindergarten  may  be  of  practical 
value  to  the  mother.  For  insta-nce,  weaving,  already 
referred  to,  may  keep  an  active  child  interested  and 
quiet  for  considerable  periods  of  time.  Besides  the 
regular  weaving  mats  of  paper,  to  be  had  from  any 
Kindergarten  supply  store,  wide  grasses  and  rushes 
may  be  braided  into  mats,  raffia  and  rattan  may  be 
woven  into  baskets,  and  strips  of  cloth  woven  into  iron- 
holders.  A  visit  to  any  neighboring  Kindergarten  will 
acquaint  the  mother  with  a  number  of  useful,  simple 
objects  that  can  be  woven  by  a  child.     Whatever  he 


g>8  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

weaves  or  whatever  he  makes  should  be  applied  to  some 
useful  purpose,  not  merely  thrown  away  ;  and  while  it 
is  true  that  a  conscientious  desire  to  live  up  to  this  rule 
often  results  in  a  considerable  clutter  of  flimsy  and 
rather  undesirable  objects  about  the  house,  still,  ways 
may  be  devised  for  slowly  retiring  the  oldest  of  them 
from  view,  and  disposing  of  others  among  patient 
relatives, 
sewing  Sewing  is  another  occupation  much  used  in  the  Kin- 

dergarten as  well  as  in  the  home.  Beginning  with  the 
simple  stringing  of  large  wooden  beads  upon  shoe- 
strings, it  passes  on  to  sewing  on  buttons,  and  sewing 
doll  clothes  to  the  making  of  real  clothing.  This  last 
in  its  simplest  form  can  be  begun  sooner  than  most 
parents  suppose,  especially  if  the  child  is  taught  the 
use  of  the  sewing  machine.  There  is  really  no  reason 
why  a  child,  say  six  years  old,  should  not  learn  to  sew 
upon  the  machine.  His  interest  in  machinery  is  keen 
at  this  period,  and  two  or  three  lessons  are  usually 
sufficient  to  teach  him  enough  about  the  mechanism  to 
keep  him  from  injuring  it.  Once  he  has  learned  to 
sew  upon  the  machine,  he  may  be  given  sheets  and 
towels  to  hem,  and  even  sew  up  the  seams  of  larger 
and  more  complex  articles.  He  will  soon  be  able  to 
make  aprons  for  himself  and  his  sisters  and  mother. 
Toy  sewing  machines  are  now  sold  which  arc  really 
useful  playthings,  and  on  which  the  child  can  manu- 
facture a  number  of  small  articles.  Those  run  by  a 
treadle  are  preferable  to  those  run  by  a  hand  crank, 


OCCUPATIONS. 


99 


because  they  leave  the  child's  hands  free  to  guide  the 
work. 

Drawing,  painting,  cutting  and  pasting  are  excellent 
occupations  for  children.  A  large  black-board  is  a 
useful  addition  to  the  nursery  furnishings,  but  the 
children  should  be  required  to  wash  it  off  with  a  damp 
cloth,  instead  of  using  the  eraser  furnished  for  the 
purpose,  as  the  chalk  dust  gets  into  the  room  and  fills 
the  children's  lungs.  Plenty  of  soft  pencils  and  cray- 
ons, also  large  sheets  of  inexpensive  drawing  paper, 
should  be  at  hand  upon  a  low  table  so  that  they  can 
draw  the  large  free  outlines  which  best  develop  their 
skill,  whenever  the  impulse  moves  them.  If  they  have 
also  blunt  scissors  for  cutting  all  sorts  of  colored  papers 
and  a  bottle  of  inocuous  library  paste,  they  will  be  able 
to  amuse  themselves  at  almost  any  time. 

Some  water  colors  are  now  made  which  are  harmless 
for  children  so  young  that  they  are  likely  to  put  the 
paints  in  their  mouths.  Paints  are  on  the  whole  less 
objectionable  than  colored  chalks,  because  the  crayons 
drop  upon  the  floor  and  get  trodden  in\o  the  carpet. 
If  children  are  properly  clothed  as  they  should  be  in 
simple  washable  garments,  there  is  practically  no  diffi- 
culty connected  with  the  free  use  of  paints,  and  their 
educational  value  is,  of  course,  very  high. 


Drawing 

Cutting 
Pasting 


Painting 


TEST     QUESTIONS 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE 

PART  II 


Read  Carefully.  In  answering-  these  questions  3'ou  are 
earnestly  requested  not  to  answer  according  to  the  text-book 
where  opinions  are  asked  for,  but  to  answer  according  to 
conviction.  In  all  cases  credit  will  be  given  for  thought  and 
original  observation.  Place  your  name  and  full  address  at 
the  head  of  the  paper;  use  your  own  words  so  that  your 
instructor  may  be  sure  that  you  understand  the  subject. 


1.  State  Fichte's  doctrine  of  rights  and  show  how  it 

applies  to  child  training.  If  possible,  give  an  ex- 
ample from  your  own  experience. 

2.  What  are  the  advantages  of  positive  commands  ? 

3.  What  two  sayings  of  Froebel  most  characteristic- 

ally sum  up  his  philosophy? 

4.  What  is  the  value  of  play  in  education  ? 

5.  What  are  the  natural  playthings?     Tell  what,  in 

your  childhood,  you  got  out  of  these  things,  or  if 
you  were  kept  away  from  them,  what  the  pro- 
hibition meant  to  you. 

6.  What   do    you   think    about    children's    dancing? 

And  acting  ? 

7.  Do  you  agree  with  those  who  think  that  the  Kin- 

dergarten makes  right  doing  too  easy  ?  State  the 
reasons  for  your  opinion. 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

8.  What  can   von   sav  of  commands,  reproofs,  and 

rules  ? 

9.  Should   von  let  the  children  help  you  about  the 

house,  even  when  they  are  so  little  as  to  be 
troublesome?  Why?  If  they  are  unwilling  to 
help,  how  do  you  induce  them  to  help? 

to.  Under  what  condition  are  domestic  activities  of 
benefit  to  the  child? 

1 1.  What  do  von  understand  to  be  the  meaning  of  the 
term  "busy-work  ?" 

T2.     Wherein  may  the  mother  learn  from  the  child? 

13.  What  is  the  difference  between  amusing  children 

and  playing  with  them  ?  Which  is  the  proper 
method  ? 

14.  Mention  some  good  rules  in  character  building. 

15.  From  your  own  experience  as  a  child  whab  can 
you  say  of  teaching  the  mysteries  of  sex? 

16.  Arc  there  any  questions  yon  would  like  to  ask, 

or  subjects  which  you  wish  to  discuss  in  connec- 
tion with  this  lesson  ? 

Note. — After  completing  the  test  sign  your  full  name. 


Study  of  Child   Life 


PART   III 


LESSON    PAPER 

PREPARED    BY 

MARION   FOSTER  WASHBURNE 

ASSOCIATE  EDITOR    "SUCCESS   LIBRARY" 

AUTHOR,   LECTURER 

FORMERLY  INSTRUCTOR   SCHOOL  OF  EDUCATION 

UNIVERSITY  OF    CHICAGO 


1904 

A 

merican  School 

of  House 

he 

Id 

Economics 

CHICAGO 

ILLINOIS, 

u. 

s. 

A. 

Copyright,  1904,  by 
American  School  of  Household  Economics. 


MADONNA    AND    CHILD 
By  Murillo,  Spanish  painter  of  the  seventeenth  century 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE 

PART  III 


of  Art 


ART    AND    LITERATURE    IN    CHILD    LIFE 

The  influence  of  art  upon  the  life  of  a  young  child 
is  difficult  of  measurement.  It  may  freely  he  said, 
however,  that  there  is  little  or  no  danger  in  exaggerat- 
ing its  influence,  and  considerable  danger  in  underrat- 
ing it.  It  is  difficult  of  measurement  because  the  in- 
fluence is  largely  an  unconscious  one.  Indeed,  it  may  iIlfluence 
be  questioned  whether  that  form  of  art  which  gives 
him  the  most  conscious  and  outspoken  pleasure  is  the 
form  that  in  reality  is  the  most  beneficial ;  for.  unques- 
tionably, he  will  get  great  satisfaction  from  circus 
posters,  and  the  poorly  printed,  abominably  illustrated 
cheap  picture-books  afford  him  undeniable  joy.  He  is 
far  less  likely  to  be  expressive  of  his  pleasure  in  a  sun- 
shinv  nursery,  whose  walls,  rugs,  white  beds,  and  sun- 
shine windows  are  all  well  designed  and  well  adapted 
to  his  needs.  Nevertheless,  in  the  end  the  influence  of 
this  room  is  likely  to  be  the  greater  influence  and  to 
permanently  shape  his  ideas  of  the  beautiful:  while 
he  is  entirely  certain,  if  allowed  to  develop  artistically 
at  all,  to  grow  past  the  circus  poster  period. 

This  fact — the  fact  that  the  highest  influence  of  art 
is  a  secret  influence,  exercised  not  only  by  those  decora- 
tions and  pictures  which  flaunt  themselves  for  the  pur- 
pose, but    also    by    those    quiet,    necessary,    every-day 


[02  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

thing's,  which  nevertheless  may  most  truly  express  the 
art  spirit — this  fact  makes  it  difficult  to  tell  what  art 
and  what  kind  of  art  is  really  influencing  the  child,  and 
whether  it  is  influencing  him  in  the  right  directions. 

Until  he  is  three  years  old,  for  example,  and  often 
until  he  is  past  that  age,  he  is  unable  to  distinguish 
clearly  between  green,  gray,  and  blue;  and  hence  these 
cool  colors  in  the  decorations  around  him,  or  in  his 
pictures,  have  practically  no  meaning  for  him.  He  has 
a  right,  one  might  suppose,  to  the  gratification  of  his 
love  for  clear  reds  and  yellows,  for  the  sharp,  well- 
defined  lines  and  flat  surfaces,  whose  meaning  is  plain 
to  his  groping  little  mind.  Some  of  the  best  illus- 
trators of  children's  books  have  seemed  to  recognize 
this.  For  example,  Boutet  de  Monvil  in  his  admirable 
illustrations  of  Joan  of  Arc  meets  these  requirements 
perfectly,  and  vet  in  a  manner  which  must  satisfy  any 
adult  lover  of  good  art.  The  Caldecott  picture  books, 
and  Walter  Crane's  are  also  good  in  this  respect,  and 
the  Perkins  pictures  issued  by  the  Prang  Educational 
I  .o.  have  gained  a  just  recognition  as  excellent  pictures 
for  hanging  on  the  nursery  wall.  Many  of  the  illustra- 
tions in  color  in  the  standard  magazines  are  well  worth 
cutting  out,  mounting  and  framing.  This  is  especially 
true  of  Howard  Pyle's  work  and  that  of  Elizabeth 
Shippen  ( ireen. 

classic  Since  photogravures  and  photographs  of  the  master- 

pieces can  be  had  in  this  country  very  inexpensively, 
there  is  no  reason   whv  children   should  not  be  made 


Art 


f 


II 

- 

1 

i  X 

II 

H 

1 

[I    \\,U    1    ! 

Hm  ' 

■■'V;:,t' 

| f , 

i 

% 

My  Ma 


"Blow,  Wind  Blow" 

PERKINS'  PICTURES 


io4  STUDY   OF  CHILD  LIVE. 

acquainted  at  an  early  age  with  the  art  classics,  but 
there  is  danger  in  giving  too  much  space  to  black  and 
white,  especially  in  the  nursery  where  the  children  live. 
Their  natural  love  of  color  should  be  appealed  to  do 
deepen  their  interest  in  really  good  pictures. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  a  matter  of  considerable  difficulty 
still  to  find  colored  pictures  which  are  inexpensive  and 
yet  reallv  good.  The  Detaille  prints,  while  not  yet 
cheap,  are  not  expensive  either,  and  are  excellent  for 
this  purpose  ;  but  the  insipid  little  pictures  of  fairies, 
flowers,  and  birds  may  be  really  harmful,  as  helping 
to  form  in  the  young  child's  mind  too  low  an  ideal  of 
beauty — of  cultivating  in  him  what  someone  has  called 
"the  lust  of  the  eye." 
piastic  What  holds  true  of  the  pictorial  art  holds  equally 

true  of  the  plastic  art.  As  Prof.  Veblin  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago  has  scathingly  declared,  our  ideals 
of  the  beautiful  are  so  mingled  with  worship  of  ex- 
pense that  few  of  us  can  see  the  genuine  beauty  in  any 
object  apart  from  its  expensiveness.  For  this  reason 
as  well  as,  perhaps,  because  of  a  remnant  of  barbarism 
in  us.  we  love  gold  and  glitter,  and  a  great  deal  of 
elaboration  in  our  vases,  and  are  far  from  being  over- 
critical  of  any  piece  of  statuary  which  costs  a  respect- 
able sum. 

A  certain  appreciation,  however,  of  the  real  value  of 
a  good  plaster-cast  has  been  gaining  among  us  of  late 
years,  and  many  public  schools,  especially  in  the  large 
cities    have  been  establishing  standards  of  good  taste 


Art 


RELIEF    MEDALLION 
B\  Andrea  della  Robbia,  in  Foundling  Hospital;  Florence 


io6  STUDY   OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

in  this  respect.  Good  casts  and  bas-reliefs  decorate 
their  halls  and  class-rooms.  There  are  few  homes  that 
cannot  afford  to  follow  their  example.  But  in  buying 
these  things  be  not  misled  by  sales  and  advertised  bar- 
gains. It  is  more  than  seldom  that  the  placques,  casts, 
and  vases  thus  obtained  are  such  as  could  have  any 
valuable  influence  whatever  upon  the  young  lives  with 
which  they  are  brought  in  contact.  Meretricious  and 
showy  ornaments,  designed  to  look  as  if  they  cost 
more  than  they  really  do,  have  no  business  in  the 
sincere  home  where  the  children  are  being  sincerely 
educated. 
Music  The  same  general  laws  apply  to  music.    No  art  has  a 

greater  and  more  insinuating  influence.  The  very 
songs  with  which  the  mother  sings  the  baby  to  sleep 
have  an  occult  influence  which  is  later  revealed  and 
made  plain.  Such  songs,  then,  should  be  simple.  They 
may  be  nothing  but  improvisations,  the  mother's  mind 
and  heart  making  music,  but  they  should  not  be  melo- 
dramatic songs  of  the  music-hall  order.  No  such 
mawkish  sentimentalism  as  that  shown  in  "The  Gypsy's 
Warning."  for  example,  or  other  songs  which  belong 
to  the  cheap  theater  should  have  a  place  in  the  holy 
of  holies — that  inmost  self  of  the  child — which  re- 
sponds to  music. 

The  simple  folk-songs  of  all  nations.  Eleanor  Smith's 
and  most  of  Mrs.  Gaynor's  songs,  already  mentioned, 
and  the  songs  collected  by  Reinecke,  called  "Fifty 
( 'hildren's  Songs,"  are  excellent  for  this  purpose.    The 


THE    DRAMA.  i<>7 

old-fashioned  nonsense  songs,  such  as  "Billy  Boy," 
"Mary  had  a  Little  Lamb"  and  "Hey  Diddle  Diddle, 
the  Cat  and  the  Fiddle,"  may  also  have  a  pleasant  and 
harmless  place  of   their  own. 

Instrumental  music  should  be  on  the  same  general 
order,  not  loud  and  showy,  but  clear,  simple,  sweet,  and 
free  from  startling  effects.  Dashing  pieces,  rag-time 
pieces,  marches,  two-steps,  and  familiar  tunes  with  va- 
riations, instead  of  bringing  about  a  spirit  of  gentle- 
ness and  harmony,  actually  tend  to  produce  self-assert- 
iveness  and  quarrelsomeness.  Let  any  mother  who 
does  not  believe  this  try  the  effect  of  an  hour  of  the 
one  kind  of  music  on  one  evening,  and  an  hour  of  the 
other  kind  on  another  evening.  The  difference  will 
be  immediately  apparent. 

The  influence  of  the  drama  must  not  be  forgotten. 
This  form  of  art,  fallen  so  low  aim  nig  us  since  the  time 
of  the  Puritans  that  it  can  scarcely  be  called  an  art  at 
all,  is,  nevertheless,  the  art  which  perhaps  above  all 
others  has  an  immediate  and  yet  lasting  influence. 
Children  are  themselves  instinctively  dramatic.  They 
like  to  compose  and  act  out  all  sorts  of  dramas  of  their 
own,  from  playing  house  (which  is  nothing  but  a 
drama  prolonged  from  day  to  day),  to  such  dramatic 
games  as  Statue-posing  and  Dumb  Crambo.  All  chil- 
dren like  to  dress  up.  to  wear  masks,  and  to  imitate  the 
peculiarities  of  persons  about  them  ;  to  try  on,  as  it 
were,  the  world  as  they  see  it,  and  discover  therebv 
how  the  actors  in  it  feel.     Goethe's  W'ilhelm    Meister 


io8  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

has  already  been  referred  to.  In  this — his  great  book 
on  education — he  practically  bases  all  education  upon 
the  drama,  and  even  throws  the  treatise  itself  into 
dramatic  form. 

This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  all  children  should 
be  permitted  to  go  to  the  theater  as  freely  as  they 
like.  No ;  the  plays  which  they  compose  and  act  for 
themselves  have  a  far  higher  value  educationally  than 
most  of  the  spectacular  presentations  of  the  old  fairy 
tales  with  which  they  are  usually  regaled,  and  certainly 
more  than  the  sensational  melodramas  which  give 
them  false  ideas  of  art  and  morality.  They  should  go 
sometimes  to  the  theater  to  see  really  good  and  simple 
plays,  but  they  should  be  oftenei  encouraged  to  get 
up  for  themselves  plays  at  home.  If,  as  they  grow 
older,  they  are  helped  to  think  out  their  costumes  with 
something  of  historical  accuracy,  to  be  true  to  the 
spirit  and  scenery  of  the  times  in  which  the  representa- 
tions are  laid,  the  activity  can  be  made  to  increase  in 
value  to  them  as  the  years  go  by.  There  is  \io  other 
art,  perhaps,  by  which  the  child  so  intimately  links  the 
world  spirit  with  his  own  spirit.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  the  School  of  Education  in  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago is  equipped  with  small  theaters  in  which  the 
children   act. 

As  for  the  art  of  literature,  not  all  children  love  read- 
ing, perhaps,  but  certainly  all  children  love  to  hear 
stories  told,  and  the  skilful  mother  will  direct  this 
spontaneous    affection   into   a   love   for   reading.      No 


Tales 


LITERATURE.  109 

other  single  love,  except  perhaps  the  love  of  nature, 
so  emancipates  the  child  from  the  thrall  of  circum- 
stances. If  he  can  escape  from  the  small  ills  of  life 
into  fairy-land  merely  by  opening  the  covers  of  a  book, 
be  sure  that  these  ills  will  not  have  power  to  crush 
him,  unless  they  be  very  great  ills  indeed. 

There  are  those  who  still  believe  that  fairy  tales  and  Fairy 
fiction  of  all  sorts  are  nothing  but  lies.  Poor  souls, 
with  their  faces  against  the  stone  wall  of  hard  facts, 
they  can  never  look  up  into  the  sky  and  see  the  winged 
and  beautiful  thoughts  freely  disporting  there.  They 
make  no  distinction  between  truth  and  fact,  yet  truth 
is  of  the  spirit  and  fact  of  the  flesh  ;  and  truth,  because 
it  is  of  the  spirit,  may  appear  under  many  forms,  even 
under  the  form  of  play.  All  rightly  told  and  rightlv 
conceived  fairy-tales  are  true  just  as  a  good  picture 
is  true.  The  painter  uses  oil,  turpentine,  and  pigment 
to  represent  the  wool  of  a  sheep,  the  water  of  a  pond, 
the  green  spears  of  grass.  Some  literal-minded  per- 
son might  say  that  he  was  lying  because  he  pretented 
that  his  little  square  of  canvas  truthfully  represented 
grazing  sheep  at  the  brook-side,  but  most  of  us  recog- 
nize that  he  is  really  telling  the  truth  only  in  another 
than  an  every  day  form.  In  the  same  way  the  writer 
of  fairy-tales  tells  the  truth,  using  the  pigments  of  the 
imagination. 

If  children  ask  whether  a  given  story  is  true  or  not, 
answer  without  hesitation,  "yes."  It  is  true,  but  it  is  a 
fairy  kind  of  truth ;  it  is  inside  truth.     There  is  magic 


no  STUDY   OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

in  it  and  a  mystery.  The  child  who  is  never  allowed 
to  read  fairy  tales,  the  man  or  the  woman  who  pre- 
fers the  newspaper  to  a  good  book  of  fiction,  misses 
much  in  life.  It  is  not  only  that  the  imagination — the 
divinest  quality  of  man,  because  the  quality  that  makes 
man  in  his  degree  a  creator-  -does  not  receive  culture, 
and  that  he  misses  the  indescribable  intellectual  ecstasy 
that  comes  only  with  the  setting  free  of  the  wings  of 
the  mind,  but  that  also  he  is  inevitably  shorn  of  his 
sympathy  and  shut  up  to  a  narrow  circle  of  interests. 
For  sympathy,  above  all  moral  qualities,  is  dependent 
upon  imagination.  If  you  cannot  imagine  how  you 
would  feel  under  your  neighbor's  conditions,  you  can- 
not deeply  sympathize  with  him.  The  person  of  un- 
imaginative mind  sympathizes  only  with  those  whose 
experience  and  habits  are  similar  to  his  own.  He 
never  escapes  from  the  narrow  circle  of  his  own  per- 
sonalis. But  the  man  whose  imagination  has  been 
kept  flexible  and  ready  from  earliest  childhood  has 
within  him  the  power  of  sympathizing  with  what- 
ever is  human — yes  !  even  with  creatures  and  things 
below  the  human  level.  Without  imagination,  there- 
fore, it  is  not  possible  for  a  man  to  be  a  great  scientist, 
for  science  demands  sympathy  with  processes  and  ob- 
jects which  are  not  yet  human.  It  is  not  possible,  ob- 
viously, for  him  to  be  a  great  artist  of  any  kind,  for  all 
art  is  interpretation  of  the  world  by  means  of  the 
imagination.  Tt  is  not  possible  for  him.  even,  to  be  a 
good  man   in   any   broad   sense,    for  the   man   whose 


LITERATURE. 


sympathies  are  narrow  is  often  found  to  be  guilty  of 
injustice  for  those  who  lie  outside  the  pale  of  those 
sympathies. 

By  all  means,  then,  encourage  the  love  of  reading  in 
your  children,  and  get  them  the  best  of  story-books  to 
read,  and  subscribe  to  the  best  magazines.  Read  with 
them.  Let  some  reading  enter  into  every  day's  life; 
talk  over  what  has  been  read  at  the  dinner-table,  and 
so  avoid  harmful  personalities  and  disagreeable  criti- 
cisms. 

As  to  the  books  to  choose,  choose  the  best.  Gen- 
erally speaking,  the  best  are  those  that  have  some 
dignity  of  age  upon  them.  As  in  music  you  chose 
the  folksongs,  so  in  children's  literature  also  choose  the 
old  fashioned  fairy  stories,  such  as  those  collected  by 
the  Brothers  Grimm  and  by  Andrew  Lang.  Hans 
Christian  Andersen's  Fairy  Stories  of  course  are  clas- 
sics. Hawthorne's  Tanglewood  Tales  give  excellent 
suggestions  as  to  the  right  use  to  be  made  of  the  old 
mythologies.  Many  of  the  supplementary  readers  now 
being  so  widely  used  in  the  public  schools  are  good, 
simple  versions  of  these  old  stories  which  helped  to 
make  the  world  what  it  should  be.  For  the  rest  there  are 
two  standard  children's  magazines  which  help  to  form 
a  good  taste  in  literature  and  which  are  continually  sug- 
gestive of  the  right  sort  of  reading  material.  These 
are  The  Youth's  Companion  and  St.  Nicholas. 

Finally,  all  appreciation  of  literature  and  art  depends 
upon  a  love  of  and  some  knowledge  of  nature.     Fairy 


Nature 
Study 


n_>  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

stories  and  mythology  especially  are  so  dependent 
upon  nature  for  their  inner  meaning  and  significance 
as  scarcely  to  be  intelligible  without  some  knowledge 
of  natural  processes  and  laws.  Of  course,  it  is  true 
that  art  in  its  turn  idealizes  nature  and  fills  her  beauti- 
ful form  with  a  beautiful  soul ;  so  that  the  child  who 
is  being  developed  on  all  sides  needs  to  take  his  books 
and  his  pictures  out  of  doors  in  order  to  get  the  full 
good  of  them. 
Art  and  No  amount  of  music,  art,  and  literature  can  make  up 

Nature 

for  the  free  life  in  the  fields  and  under  the  sky  which 
all  these  arts  describe  and  interpret.  If  he  should  be 
so  unhappy  as  to  have  to  choose  between  nature  and 
art,  it  would  be  better  for  him  to  choose  nature,  be- 
cause then,  perhaps,  art  might  be  born  in  his  own 
soul.  But  there  is  happily  no  need  for  such  a  painful 
choice.  He  can  sing  his  little  song  out  of  doors  with 
the  birds  and  notice  how  they  join  in  the  chorus.  He 
can  paint  evening  sunsets  with  the  pine-trees  against 
it  far  better  out  of  doors  than  indoors  with  copy 
perched  before  him.'  He  can  look  down  the  aisles 
of  the  real  woods  to  watch  for  the  enchanted  princess, 
or  for  the  chivalrous  knight  whose  story  he  is  reading. 
Art  and  nature  belong  together  in  the  unified  soul  of 
the  child.  Well  for  him  and  for  the  world  in  which  he 
lives  if  they  are  never  divorced,  but  he  goes  on  to  the 
end  loving  them  both  and  seeing  them  both  as  one. 


CHILDREN'S    ASSOCIATES 

If  the  child  was  intended  to  grow  into  a  man  of  fam- 
ily, merely,  family  training  might  be  sufficient  for  him, 
but  since  he  must  grow  into  a  member  of  society,  so- 
cial training  is  as  necessary  for  him  as  family  training. 
Failure  to  recognize  this  truth  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
current  misconceptions  of  the  Kindergarten.  There 
are  still  thousands  of  persons  who  suppose  it  is  only 
a  superior  sort  of  day-nursery  where  children  may  be 
safely  kept  and  innocently  employed  while  the  mother 
gets  the  housework  done. 

While  this  might  be  a  laudable  enough  function  to 
perform,  it  is  by  no  means  the  function  of  the  Kinder- 
garten. This  method  of  instruction  aims  at  much 
more.  It  aims  to  lay  foundations  for  a  complete  later 
education,  and  especially  to  make  firm  in  the  child 
those  virtues  and  aptitudes  which,  when  they  are  held 
by  the  majority  of  men,  constitute  the  safety  and  wel- 
fare of  society.  For  this  reason,  no  home,  however 
well  ordered,  can  supply  to  the  child  what  the  Kinder- 
garten supplies.  For  the  home  is  necessarily  limited 
to  the  members  of  one  family,  while  the  Kindergarten, 
on  the  contrary,  makes  plain  to  the  child  the  claims 
upon  him  of  society  not  made  up  of  his  kinsfolk.  It 
is  the  wide  world  in  miniature,  and  if  it  is  a  properly 
organized  Kindergarten,  it  will  contain  within  itself  a 
wide  variety  of  children — children  of  wealth     and  of 


ii4  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

poverty,  of  ignorance  and  of  gentle  breeding — and 
will  bring  them  all  under  one  just  rule.  For  only  by 
this  commingling  of  many  characters  upon  a  common 
level  and  under  the  strict  reign  of  justice  can  the  child 
•  be  fitted  practically,  and  by  means  of  a  series  of  pro- 
gressive experiments,  for  citizenship  in  a  genuine 
democracy. 

Exclusive  Parents  sometimes  so  far  miss  the  aim  of  the  Kin- 

Associates 

dergarten  as  to  desire  that  instead  of  such  a  com- 
mingling there  shall  be  a  narrow  limit  set ;  that  in  the 
Kindergarten  shall  be  only  such  children  as  the  child 
is  accustomed  to  associate  with.  But  if  the  Kinder- 
garten acceded  to  this  demand,  as  it  seldom  does,  it 
would  lose  much  of  its  usefulness,  for  every  one  knows 
that  children  cannot  be  permanently  sheltered  from 
contact  with  the  outside  world,  nor  can  they  be  al- 
ways reared  in  an  atmosphere  of  exclusiveness.  A 
wisdom  greater  than  the  mother's  has  ordered  that  no 
child  shall  be  so  narrowly  nourished.  If  he  has  any 
freedom  whatever,  any  naturalness  of  life,  he  must 
and  will  enlarge  his  circle  of  acquaintances  beyond  the 
limit  of  his  mother's  calling  list. 

Indeed,  even  those  Kindergartens  which  are  pro- 
fessedly exclusive,  and  which  confine  their  ministra- 
tions to  the  children  of  one  particular  neighborhood, 
are  obliged  by  the  nature  of  things  to  contain  nascent 
individualities  of  almost  every  type.  For  no  neigh- 
borhood, however  equal  in  wealth  and  fashion,  ever 
produced   children   of  an   unvarying  quality.     In   any 


CHILDRENS'    ASSOCIATES.  115 

circle,  no  matter  how  exclusive,  there  are  mischievous 
children,  children  who  use  bad  language,  children  who 
have  sly,  mean  tricks,  children  who  do  not  speak  the 
truth,  and  who  are  in  other  ways  quite  as  undesirable 
as  the  children  of  the  poor  and  ignorant.  It  is  often 
asserted,  indeed,  that  the  children  of  exclusive  neigh- 
borhoods  very  often  show  more  varieties  of  badness 
than  the  children  of  the  open  street.  The  records  of 
the  private  Kindergarten  as  compared  with  the  public 
Kindergarten  amply  prove  this  statement. 

Since,  then,  whether  you  confine  your  child  to  the  Evil 
limits  of  your  own  circle  or  not,  you  cannot  success-  ExamPle 
fully  keep  him  from  playing  with  children  who  are 
more  or  less  objectionable,  what  are  you  going  to  do 
to  keep  him  from  the  harm  of  such  association  ?  You 
have  to  make  him  strong  enough  to  withstand  temp- 
tation and  resist  the  force  of  evil  example.  Of  course, 
he  must  have  as  little  of  the  wrong  example,  especiallv 
in  his  younger  and  tenderer  years,  as  can  be  managed 
without  too  greatly  checking  his  activity  and  curtail- 
ing his  freedom.  Yet  after  all  he  is  to  be  taught  a 
positive  and  not  a  negative  righteousness,  and  if  his 
home  training  is  not  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  stand 
against  a  certain  downward  pull  from  the  outside, 
there  is  something  the  matter  with  it. 

While  he  must  not  be  strained  too  hard,  nor  too 
constantly  associate  with  children  whose  manners  put 
his  manners  to  the  test,  still  he  ought  by  degrees,  al- 
most imperceptibly,  to  be  accustomed  to  holding:  to  the 


110 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 


Social 
Training 


Responsibility 
to  Society 


truth,  to  that  which  is  found  good,  no  matter  whether 
his  associates  rind  it  desirable  or  not. 

A  good  Kindergarten  is  a  mother's  best  help  in  this 
endeavor,  for  there  her  child  meets  with  all  sorts  of 
other  children.  The  very  influence  of  the  place,  and 
the  ever-ready  help  of  the  teacher  are  on  his  side. 
Every  effort  he  makes  to  do  right  is  met  and  welcome*  1. 
In  every  stand  that  he  takes  against  temptation,  he  is 
unobtrusively  reinforced.  Moreover,  the  wrong-doing 
of  hiscomrades  is  never  allowed  to  retain  the  attractive 
glitter  that  it  sometimes  acquires  on  the  play-ground. 
It  is  promptly  held  up  to  general  obloquy,  and  the  good 
child  finds  to  his  surprise  that  he  is  not  the  only  one 
who  thinks  that  teasing,  for  example,  is  mean  and 
selfish  and  that  a  violent  temper  is  ugly. 

Moreover,  in  the  Kindergarten  the  sense  of  social 
responsibility  is  borne  in  upon  him.  Perhaps  it  comes 
to  him  first  when  he  is  chosen  to  lead  the  march  and 
finds  that  he  must  be  careful  not  to  squeeze  through 
too  narrow  places,  lest  someone  get  into  trouble.  Tn 
dealing  out  pencils,  worsted,  and  other  materials  he 
must  be  careful  to  show  strict  impartiality,  and  give  no 
preference  to  his  own  personal  friends.  In  a  hundred 
small  ways  he  is  helped  to  regulate  his  own  conduct, 
so  that  it  may  conduce  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
school. 

Where  there  are  no  Kindergartens,  the  task  becomes 
a  more  difficult  one  for  the  mother,  for  it  becomes 
necessary,  then,  that  she  herself  should  undertake  the 


c  H 1 1,  n KENS'    ASSOCIA  TES.  1 1 7 

social  training-  of  her  child,  and  this  means  that  she 
must  know  his  playmates,  not  only  through  his  report 
of  them,  but  through  her  own  observation  of  them, 
and  that  they  must  be  sufficiently  at  home  with  her 
to  betray  their  true  characters  in  her  presence.  And  this 
means,  of  course,  that  she  must  become  her  child's 
plavmate.  There  are  few  women  who  think  that  they 
have  time  for  this,  but  there  are  also  few  who  would 
not  be  benefited  by  it.  If  anywhere  there  is  a  fountain 
of  vouth,  it  gushes  up  invisibly  wherever  playing  chil- 
dren are,  and  she  who  plays  with  them  gets  sprinkled 
by  it. 

If  there  be  no  time  during  the  busy  day  when  she 
can  justly  enter  into  the  children's  free  play,  at  least 
there  is  a  little  while  in  the  iate  afternoon  or  in  the 
earlv  evening  when  she  can  do  so,  if  she  will.  An  hour 
or  two  a  week  spent  in  active  association  with  children 
at  their  games  will  make  her  intimately  acquainted 
with  all  their  playmates,  and,  moreover,  constitute  her 
a  power  of  first  magnitude  among  them.  Her  mother- 
hood thus  extends  itself,  and  she  blesses  not  only  her 
own  children,  but  all  those  who  come  near  her  chil- 
dren. In  this  respect  no  Kindergarten  can  take  the 
place  of  the  mother's  own  companionship  with  the 
child  in  his  social  life. 

Tn  an  ideal  condition  the  child  has  his  Kindergar- 
ten in  the  morning ;  his  quiet  hours,  one  of  them  en- 
tirely solitary,  in  the  afternoon  ;  his  social  time,  when 
he,   his   brothers   and    sisters   and   mother,   are   joined 


nS  STUDY   OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

„..,.  with  the  other  children  and  mothers  in  the  neighbor- 

e  Children  s  o 

Hour.  hood,  in  the  late  afternoon,  and  his  family  time,  with 
both  father  and  mother,  in  the  evening  before  going 
to  bed. 

In  thus  sharing  her  child's  social  life  the  mother 
admits  the  claim  upon  her  of  social  responsibility ;  she 
sees  that  her  duty  is  not  to  her  own  home  alone,  but 
to  the  other  homes  with  which  hers  is  linked — not  to 
her  own  child  alone,  but  to  all  children  whose  lives 
touch  her  child's  life.  Her  own  nature  widens  with 
the  perception,  and  she  enhances  her  direct  teaching 
with  the  force  of  a  beautiful  example. 


STUDIES   AND  ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

There  may  easily  be  too  many  studies  and  too  many 
accomplishments  in  the  life  of  any  child.  As  our 
schools  are  constituted  there  are  certainly  too  many 
studies  of  the  wrong  kind  being  carried  on  every  day. 
But  there  are  also  too  few  studies  of  the  right  kind. 
In  one  of  our  large  cities  a  test  was  once  made  as  to 
how  much  the  children  who  left  school  at  the  fifth 
grade,  as  70  per  cent  of  them  do,  had  actually  learned 
in  a  way  that  would  be  of  practical  value  to  them,  and 
the  results  were  most  discouraging.  These  city  chil- 
dren who  could  recite  their  tables  of  measurements 
with  glibness,  and  who  performed  with  a  fair  degree  of 
success  several  hundred  examples  dealing  with  units 
of  measure,  could  not  tell  whether  their  school-room 
floor  contained  one  acre  or  two  hundred  and  forty ! 
None  of  them  suspected  that  it  contained  less  than  an 
acre.  Although  they  could  bound  the  States  of  the 
Union,  and  give  the  principal  exports  and  imports, 
they  knew  next  to  nothing  of  their  own  city  and  of 
its  actual  relation  to  the  countries  which  they  studied 
in  their  geography  lessons.  The  teachers,  in  ex- 
planation, laid  much  of  the  blame  for  this  state  of  af- 
fairs upon  the  parents,  saying  that  they  took  but  little 
interest  in  their  children's  studies,  and  never  attempt- 
ed to  link  them  to  the  things  of  every-day  life.  But 
while  this  claim  might  be  justified  to  some  extent,  it 


The  New 
Education 


120  STUDY   OF   CHILD  LIFE. 

was  by  no  means  sufficient  to  cover  the  facts  of  the 
case.  The  truth  is,  it  was  quite  as  much  the  teachers' 
duty  to  link  these  abstract  studies  with  concrete  facts, 
as  it  was  the  parents'. 

Such  an  experience,  however,  suggests  the  manner 
in  which  parents  can  best  help  on  the  work  of  children 
in  school.  So  long  as  these  studies  are  still  taught  in 
the  dead,  monotonous  way  common  to  text-books,  chil- 
dren will  be  racked  nervously,  and  not  benefited  men- 
tally in  the  effort  to  master  them.  Fathers  and  mothers 
who  by  the  exercise  of  some  ingenuity  manage  to 
show  the  child  that  his  arithmetical  knowledge  is  of 
actual  help  in  solving  the  questions  of  every-day  life  : 
that  his  history  has  bearings  upon  the  progress  of 
events  around  him,  and  that  his  geography  relates  to 
actual  places  which,  perhaps,  father  and  mother  may 
have  seen,  or  which  their  books  tell  about — such  fath- 
ers and  mothers  will  make  their  children's  school  work- 
easier,  at  the  same  time  that  they  increase  the  sum 
of  their  children's  knowledge.  It  is  dead  knowledge 
only — knowledge  wrenched  from  its  living  content — 
that  is  difficult  of  digestion. 

It  is  as  natural  for  a  young  mind  to  like  to  learn, 
as  it  is  for  a  healthy  stomach  to  be  supplied  with  food  ; 
but  knowledge,  like  the  food,  must  be  fit  for  the  use 
that  is  to  be  made  of  it  and  for  the  organ  that  is  to 
receive  it ;  and  the  brain,  like  the  stomach,  has  a  signal 
which  it  flies  to  show  whether  the  food  is  what  it  wants 
or    not.      The    brain    exhibits    interest    exactly    as    the 


STUDIES.  121 

stomach  exhibits  appetite.  The  object  of  scientific 
education  is  to  discover  what  the  spontaneous,  univer- 
sal interest  of  children  of  certain  ages  is,  and  to  meet 
that  interest  with  the  fullest  possible  supply  of 
knowledge  in  every  conceivable  form. 

Scientific  education  does  not  depend  upon  text- 
books or  upon  merely  verbal  explanations,  but  gets 
the  idea  home  to  the  child  by  the  means  of  a  varied  ap- 
peal to  all  the  senses  and  sensibilities.  For  this  reason 
the  most  advanced  schools  have  many  more  studies  and 
what  are  commonly  called  accomplishments  than  the 
public  or  parochial  schools.  That  is,  they  add  to  the 
three  r's — reading,  'riting  and  'rithmetic — drawing, 
modeling,  painting,  manual  training,  physical  culture, 
dramatic  representation,  music,  field  trips,  and  labo- 
ratory  work. 

Yet  this  apparently  great  increase  of  subjects  in  the 
number  of  studies  actually  lessens  the  amount  of  work 
required  of  the  child,  because  all  these  different  activi- 
ties, by  means  of  what  is  called  correlation,  are  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  same  subject.  For  example,  the  class 
which  goes  out  for  a  field  trip  to  visit  a  near-by  brook 
sees  the  water  actually  at  work,  cutting  its  -way  to  the 
river,  and  thence  to  the  sea.  They  measure  its  force 
and  note  its  effects  :  they  make  a  water-color  sketch 
of  some  curve  of  it :  they  notice  what  birds  and  insects 
are  about ;  what  dowers  grow  there  ;  what  indications 
there  may  be  of  burrowing  animals.  When  they  get 
back  to  school  they  model,  perhaps,  some  bird  that  they 


122  STUDY   OF   CHILD   LIFE. 

have  noticed  ;  or  in  the  geographical  laboratory,  with 
streams  of  water  try  to  reproduce  in  miniature  the 
action  of  the  brook  upon  the  soil  through  which  it 
flows. 

For  their  arithmetic  lesson  they  estimate  the  num- 
ber of  years  the  brook  must  have  been  flowing  to  have 
cut  its  valley  to  its  present  depth.  They  make  a  full 
report  and  description  of  their  day's  work  for  their 
reading  and  writing  lesson.  They  have  thus  gained 
an  immense  amount  of  information,  and  have  done  a 
great  deal  of  hard  work  ;  but  instead  of  being  nervously 
exhausted,  they  are  bright  and  exhilarated.  Such 
fatigue  as  they  know  is  wholesome  and  fits  them  for 
a  sound  night's  sleep. 
Home  When  it  is  impossible  to  send  the  child  to  such  a 

school  as  this,  something  may  be  done  by  supplement- 
ing the  ordinary  school  by  some  of  these  procedures. 
The  clay  jar,  the  crayons,  and  the  paints  have  already 
been  suggested,  and  with  the  parents'  interest  in  the 
child's  studies,  helping  him  to  model  and  paint  things 
which  he  studies  at  school,  he  will  instantly  show  the 
good  effect  of  the  home  training  and  encouragement. 
As  for  field  trips,  the  regular  Sunday  walk,  or  evening 
stroll,  may  be  made  to  take  its  place.  If  you  think  that 
von  do  not  know  enough  to  teach  your  child  on  these 
walks,  give  him  then  the  privilege  of  teaching  you. 
He  will  work  the  harder  in  order  to  rise  to  the  occa- 


STUDIES   AND  ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 


123 


As  for  physical  culture,  if  your  school  is  without  it, 
your  barn,  your  parlor,  and  your  lawn  may  supply  it  in 
some  sort.  In  the  barn  may  be  a  trapeze ;  there  is 
already  the  ladder  and  the  hay-loft ;  on  the  lawn  may 
be  a  swing',  trees  to  climb,  and  the  tennis  court.  In 
your  parlor  may  be  a  little  home  dancing-  school,  where 
for  a  half  an  hour  or  so,  the  children  march,  skip,  or 
two-step  to  music  of  your  making.  In  the  wood  shed 
may  be  a  carpenter's  bench  with  real  tools,  where  he 
may  work  and  get  some  of  the  good  of  manual  train- 
ing. 

Accomplishments,  meaning  thereby  showy  things 
that  children  do  for  the  edification  of  guests,  are  of 
doubtful  value.  It  is  pleasant,  of  course,  to  have  your 
little  girl  play  a  piece  or  two  on  the  piano  to  entertain 
your  visitors,  but  it  is  not  nearly  so  important  as 
health  and  strength,  and  a  cheerful  temper.  Some- 
times all  three  of  these  are  sacrificed  to  the  two  or 
three  hours'  practice  a  day.  Often,  too,  this  extra 
work  after  school  hours — work  full  as  monotonous 
and  nervous  and  uninteresting  as  the  school  work  itself 
— is  just  what  is  needed  to  transform  a  healthy  young 
girl  into  a  nervous  invalid.  This  is  especiallv  true,  if 
she  undertakes,  as  she  usually  does,  to  study  music 
when  she  is  about  thirteen  years  old — the  very  time 
when,  if  wise  physicians  could  regulate  affairs  to  their 
liking,  she  would  be  taken  out  of  school  altogether 
and  required  to  do  nothing  more  than  a  little  light 
housework  every  daw 


Physical 
Culture 


Showy 
Accomplish- 
ments 


124 


STCDl   OF  CHILI)  LIFE. 


Natural 
Talent 


Of  course,  if  she  is  naturally  musical  some  kind  of 
help  and  sympathy  must  be  given  her  in  her  attempt 
to  master  the  piano  or  violin  or  to  manage  her  own 
voice.  But  while  she  should  be  allowed  to  learn  as 
much  as  her  unurged  energies  permit  her  to  learn,  she 
should  not  be  required  to  practice  more  than  a  very 
small  amount,  say  half  an  hour  a  day.  The  bulk  of  her 
musical  education  should  be  acquired  in  the  vacation 
time,  when  she  can  give  two  hours  a  day  without 
overstraining. 

The  same  general  rules  hold  good  of  dancing,  paint- 
ing, the  acquirements  of  foreign  languages,  a  special 
course  of  reading,  or  any  other  work  undertaken  in 
addition  to  the  regular  school  work.  This  latter,  as  it 
is  now  constituted,  is  quite  as  severe  a  nervous  and 
intellectual  strain  as  most  young  people  can  undergo 
with   safety. 

There  is  one  characteristic  in  young  people  which 
needs  to  be  noted  in  this  connection: — the  desire  to 
take  up  some  form  of  work,  to  strive  with  it  furiously 
for  a  brief  while,  to  drop  it  unfinished  ;  take  up  an- 
other with  equal  eagerness,  drop  that  in  turn  and  go 
on  to  a  third.  This  performance  is  peculiarly  irritat- 
ing to  all  systematic  and  ambitious  parents.  Some- 
times they  rigidly  insist  that  each  task  shall  be  finished 
before  a  new  one  is  assumed.  But  in  reality,  is  this 
necessary  ~J  It  seems  to  be  as  natural  for  a  young 
mind  to  set  eagerly  to  work  for  a  short  time  at  each 
new  bit  of  knowledge,  as  it  is  for  a  nursing  child  to 


STUDIES   AND  ACCOMPLISHMENTS.  125 

require  refreshments  every  two  or  three  hours.  It  is 
an  adult  trait  to  stick  to  a  task,  even  though  a  very 
long  one.  until  it  is  accomplished.  The  youthful  trait 
is  to  take  kindly  to  a  clutter  of  unfinished  tasks. 

The  youthful  consciousness  is  of  a  world  full  of 
jostling  interests.  Why  not  let  the  children  alone,  and 
allow  them  to  spring  lightly  from  one  enthusiasm  to 
another?  (  )f  course  you  will  help  them  to  finish,  either 
at  the  first  sitting-  or  at  the  second  or  at  the  third,  the 
task  that  was  undertaken  when  that  particular  enthu- 
siasm was  at  its  height.  The  drawing  which  has  re- 
mained on  the  easel  during  the  foot-ball  season  may  be 
suggestively  brought  to  notice  again  in  the  quiet  times 
between  Thanksgiving  and  Christmas.  The  boat  be- 
gun last  summer  may  well  be  finished  in  the  days  of  the 
succeeding  Spring  when  all  the  earth  is  full  of  the 
sound  of  running  water.  Thus  each  task,  though  not 
completed  at  once,  gets  done  in  the  end :  and  the 
youthful  capacity  for  many  sympathies  and  many  de- 
sires has  not  been  narrowed. 

Such  a  line  of  conduct  presupposes,  of  course,  that  Parental 
the  parent  considers  only  the  child's  best  welfare,  and 
flot  his  own  parental  vanity.  He  is  not  desirous  that 
his  son  shall  do  anything  so  well  as  to  attract  the  at- 
tention and  admiration  of  the  neighbors.  He  is  de- 
sirous merely  that  the  boy  shall  grow  up  wholesomely 
and  happily,  showing  such  superiority  as  there  may 
be  in  him  when  the  fitting  time  and  opportunitv  present 
themselves.     He  will  not  attempt  to  make  a  musician 


Vanity 


126  STUDY   Of  CHILD   LIFE. 

of  an  unmusical  child,  nor  a  mechanic  of  an  artistic 
child.  He  will  not  object  to  the  brilliant  and  im- 
practical dreams  of  the  young-  inventor,  but  will  help 
to  make  them  practicable  ;  and  though  lie  may  squirm 
at  some  of  the  investigations  of  the  budding  scientist, 
he  will  not  forbid  them. 

For  such  a  parent  recognizes  that  the  important 
thing,  educationally,  is  to  secure  the  reaction  of  ex- 
pression upon  thought  and  feeling.  That  is,  he  is  not 
trying  to  secure  at  this  time — at  any  time  during 
youth — perfect  expression  of  any  thought  or  feeling, 
but  only  to  deepen  feeling  and  clarify  thought  by 
encouraging  all  attempts  at  expression.  He  does  not 
wish  his  child  to  make  a  finished  picture  or  a  perfect 
statue,  but  to  acquire  a  greater  sensitiveness  to  color 
and  form  by  each  attempt  to  express  that  color  and 
form  which  he  already  knows.  Thus  whatever  studies 
and  accomplishments  his  child  may  be  in  the  act  of 
acquiring  are  seen  to  be  nothing  as  acquisitions,  but 
the  child  himself  is  seen  to  be  growing  stage  by  stage 
within  the  clumsy  scaffolding. 

FINANCIAL  TRAINING 

The  financial  training  of  children  ought  reallv  to  be 
considered  under  the  head  of  moral  training,  but  in 
some  respects  it  can  come  equally  well  under  the  head 
of  intellectual  training;  for  to  spend  money  well  re- 
quires both  self-control  and  intelligence.  Some  persons 
seem  to  think  that  all  that  a  child  can  be  taucht  in  this 


FINANCIAL    TRAINING.  127 

regard  is  to  save  money,  and  they  meet  the  situation  by 

purchasing  various  shapes  and  styles  of  savings  banks. 
But  it  is  entirely  possible  to  teach  the  child  too  thor- 
oughly in  this  respect  and  to  make  him  so  fond  of  his 
jingling  pennies  safe  within  a  yellow  crockery  pig  or 
iron  cupolaed  mansion  that  he  will  not  spend  them  for 
any  object,  however  laudable.  Others  evade  the  issue 
as  long  as  possible  by  giving  the  child  no  money  at 
all ;  while  most  of  us  pursue  an  uncertain  and  wabbly 
course,  sometimes  giving  money,  sometimes  withhold- 
ing it,  sometimes  exhorting  the  child  to  spend,  and 
sometimes  to  save. 

In  truth  spending  wisely  is  a  difficult  problem.  As  ^fiowance 
a  rule  the  child  may  safely  be  induced  to  lay  by  for  a 
season  and  then  encouraged  to  spend  for  some  gen- 
erous purpose.  Christmas  and  other  festivals  offer  ex- 
cellent opportunities  for  proper  disbursement  of  the 
hoarded  funds.  These  may  be  supposed  to  have  accu- 
mulated from  irregular  gifts  :  but  as  the  child  grows 
older  he  should  come  into  receipt  of  a  regular  definite 
allowance,  perhaps  conditioned  upon  his  performance  of 
some  stated  duty.  A  certain  part  of  his  allowance  he 
may  be  permitted  to  spend  upon  such  frivolities  as  are 
naturally  dear  to  his  young  heart ;  another  part  of  it 
he  should  be  encouraged — not  commanded — to  put 
aside  for  larger  purposes. 

The  giving  of  this  allowance  must  not  be  confused 
with  the  pernicious  habit  of  bribing  the  child  to  the  per- 
formance  of   those   little    daily    courtesies    and    duties 


i28  STUDY   OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

which  he  ought  to  be  willing  to  perform  out  of  love 
and  a  sense  of  right.  A  certain  part  of  his  daily  work, 
such  as  seeing. that  the  match-boxes  all  over  the  house 
are  filled,  or  some  similar  share  of  the  general  labor  of 
the  household,  may  he  regarded  as  that  for  which  he  is 
paid  wages;  and  any  extra  task  which  does  not  justly 
belong  to  him,  he  may  sometimes  be  paid  for  perform- 
ing ;  but  not  always.  For  instance,  he  ought  to  be  will- 
ing to  run  to  the  grocery  for  mother  without  demand- 
ing that  he  be  paid  a  penny  for  the  job;  yet  sometime;? 
the  penny  may  be  forthcoming..  The  point  is  that  he 
should  be  ready  to  work,  even  to  work  hard,  without 
pay,  and  vet  that  he  should  never  feel  that  his  mother 
withholds  pay  from  him  when  she  can  give  it  and  he 
receive  it  without  injury, 
spending  When  the  money  is  once  his,  he  should  be  allowed 

Foolishly  tQ  £ee]  t|1(?  fujj  happiness  an(J  responsibility  of  posses- 
sion, and  if  he  insists  upon  spending  it  foolishly,  should 
be  allowed  to  do  it  and  to  suffer  to  the  full  the  un- 
comfortable consequences.  Tf,  on  the  contrary,  he  will 
not  spend  it  at  all,  his  mother  must  use  every  means  in 
her  power  to  lessen  the  desire  for  ownership  and  to 
increase  his  love  for  others  and  his  eagerness  to  please 
them. 

As  judgment  develops  the  allowance  may  well  be 
increased  to  provide  for  necessities  in  the  way  of  inci- 
dentals and  clothing  until  at  the  "age  of  discretion"  he 
is  in  full  charge  of  the  funds  for  his  personal  expenses. 
He  should  be  encouraged  to  apply  his  knowledge  of 


PlNANClAL   TRAINING.  129 

commercial  arithmetic  in  the  keeping  of  personal  ac- 
counts. 

Experience  in  spending  a  fixed  amount  of  money  is 
especially  needful  for  the  daughters.  Most  young  men 
have  the  value  of  money  and  financial  responsibility 
forced  upon  them  in  the  natural  course  of  events,  but 
too  often  the  young  wife  has  not  had  the  training  qual- 
ifying her  for  the  equal  financial  partnership  which 
should  exist  in  the  ideal  marriage. 


THE    INFANT    GALAHAD— FIRST   SIGHT   OF   TnE  GRAIL, 

From  the  mural  painting's  by  Edwin  A.  Abbey  in  the 
Boston  Public  Librarv 


RELIGIOUS  TRAINING 

If  the  common  school  is  not  sufficient  for  the  secular 
education   of  the   child,   certainly   the    Sunday   School 
is   not   sufficient   for   his   religious  education.      In   the 
common  schools  the  teachers  are  more  or  less  trained 
for  their  work.     It  is  a  life  occupation  with  them;  by 
means    of   it   they    earn    their    living,    and   their    daily 
success  with  their  pupils  marks  their  rate  of  progress 
toward    higher   fields   of   endeavor.      Nothing   of   this      Sunday 
sort  is  true  in  the  Sunday  School.     While  occasionally      Teachers 
it  happens  that  a  day  school  teacher  becomes  a  Sunday 
School  teacher,  this  is  seldom  true,  for  most  teachers 
who  teach   during   the   week   feel   that   they   need   the 
Sunday    for    rest ;    and    while    some    Sunday    School 
teachers  betrav   a  commendable   earnestness   and   zeal 
for  their  work,  and  associations  and  conventions  have 
latterly  added  somewhat  to  the  joint  effort  to  better 
the  conditions,  still  it  remains  true  that  the  teaching  in 
the  Sunday  Schools  is  far  below  the  pedagogic  level 
of  the  common  schools.    Vet  the  subject  which  is  dealt 
with  in  the  Sunday  Schools,  instead  of  being  of  less 
importance  than  that  dealt  with  in  the  common  schools. 
is  of  pre-eminently  greater  importance.    Because  of  its 
subtlety,  its  intimacy  with  the  hidden  springs  of  con- 
duct, it  calls  for  the  exercise  of  the  very  highest  teach- 
ing skill. 


i32  STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

Sonic  sort  of  recognition  of  these  two  facts — that 
Sunday  School  teachers  are  in  most  cases  very  inade- 
quately trained  for  their  work,  and  that  the  work 
itself  is  of  great  importance,  and  of  equally  great  dif- 
ficulty— has  led  to  the  issuing  of  many  quarterlies, 
International  Lesson  Leaflets,  and  other  Sunday  School 
aids.  Necessary  as  such  help  may  be  under  present 
conditions,  they  cannot  possibly  meet  the  many  diffi- 
culties of  the  case.  If  the  central  committees,  who 
issue  these  leaflets,  were  composed  wholly  of  the  wisest 
men  and  women  on  earth,  it  would  still  be  impossible 
for  them  to  give  lessons  to  the  millions  of  children  in 
their  various  denominations  which  should  meet  the 
personal  needs,  and  daily  interests  of  these  young 
people. 

As  a  consequence,  Sunday  School  teaching  is  and 
school      nulst  i3e  largely  theoretical  and  still  more  largely  ex- 

Teaching  o      .'  y      * 

egetical,  and  with  neither  theory  nor  exegesis  is  the 
young  mind  of  the  developing  child  very  much  con- 
cerned. What  he  needs  is  not  the  historical  side  of 
religion  or  of  that  great  body  of  religious  literature 
which  we  call  the  Bible,  but  a  living  faith  which  links 
all  that  was  taught  by  the  prophets  and  apostles,  cen- 
turies ago,  with  what  is  happening  in  the  child's  own 
town  and  family  at  that  very  moment.  It  is  a  wide 
gap  to  bridge,  and  it  cannot  be  bridged  by  a  semi- 
historical  review  backed  by  picture  cards,  golden  texts, 
and  stars  for  good  behavior.  These  things  are  merely 
the  marks  of  an  endeavor  to  fitly  accomplish  a  great 


Sunday 


RELIGIOUS  TRAINING.  133 

task,  an  endeavor  almost  absurdly  out  of  proportion 
to  this  aim,  rendered  significant,  however,  because  it 
is  the  earnest  of  a  great  faith  and  a  great  hope. 

So  far  as  Sunday  Schools  help  children,  it  is  because 
of  this  spirit  of  faithfulness,  and  not  because  of  the 
form  which  it  has  assumed. 

In  choosing,  then,  whether  you  shall  send  your 
child  to  a  Sunday  School,  choose  by  the  presence 
or  absence  of  this  spirit.  If  you  know  the  teachers 
of  the  Sunday  School  to  be  earnest,  loving,  and  de- 
voted, you  may  with  safety  assume  that  their  per- 
sonal influence  will  make  up  for  what  is  archaic  in 
their  method  of  teaching.  Where  the  spirit  is  present 
only  in  a  few.  or  where  it  manifests  itself  only  occa- 
sionally, as  at  seasons  of  revival,  you  may  well  hesi- 
tate to  let  your  child  attend.  A  great  improvement 
would  come  about  if  parents  would  show  a  greater 
interest  and  encourage  proper  teachers  to  take  charge 
of  classes.     It  is  a  thankless  task  at  present. 

There  is  one  great  danger  in  the  teaching  of  any 
Sunday  School — one  which  the  best  of  them  cannot  pr°aCtic, 
wholly  escape — and  that  is,  that,  in  the  very  nature 
of  things,  they  teach  theory  and  not  practice.  Harm- 
ful as  this  may  be,  indeed  as  it  surely  is  in  adult  life, 
it  does  not  begin  to  be  so  harmful  as  it  does  in  youth, 
for  the  young  child,  as  we  have  seen,  is  and  should 
remain  a  unit  in  consciousness.  His  life,  his  intellect, 
and  his  will  are  one — an  undivided  trinity.  The 
divorce  of  these  three  is  at  any  time  a  regrettable  oc- 


Theory 


U4 


STUDY   OF   CHILD   LIFE. 


Useless 
Truths 


The  Mother 
as   Teacher 


cufrence  ;  the  divorce  of  them  in  early  life  is  an  almost 
irreparable    disaster. 

The  current  theory  is  that  children  will  learn  many 
truths  in  the  Sunday  School  which  they  will  not  put 
into  practice  then,  perhaps,  hut  which  they  will  find 
useful  in  later  life.  This  fallacy  underlies,  of  course, 
almost  all  conventional  education  and  has  only  been 
overthrown  by  the  dictum  of  modern  psychology,  that 
there  is  but  small  storage  accommodation  in  the  brain 
for  facts  which  have  no  immediate  relation  to  life. 
What  may  be  termed  the  saturating  power  of  the  brain 
is  limited,  and  after  it  has  soaked  up  a  rather  small 
number  of  truths,  it  can  contain  no  more  until  it  has 
in  some  way  disposed  of  those  that  it  still  has — either 
by  making  them  part  of  its  own  living  structure,  which 
is  done  only  by  making  immediate  application  of  them ; 
or  by  dropping  them  below  the  threshold  of  conscious- 
ness, that  is,  in  common  language,  forgetting  them. 
Moreover,  the  brain  may  form  the  habit  of  easily 
dropping  all  that  relates  to  a  given  subject  into  the 
limbo  where  unused  things  lie  disregarded,  and  when 
this  becomes  the  habitual  method  of  disposing  of  re- 
ligious instruction,  the  results  are  particularly  deplor- 
able. 

Feeble  as  her  own  knowledge  may  be,  a  mother  has 
certain  advantages  as  a  teacher  of  her  children  over  any 
hut  the  exceptional  Sunday  school  teacher.  For,  first, 
she  knows  the  children,  and,  knowing  them,  knows  their 
needs.     Secondlv,  she  knows  their  dailv  lives  and  con- 


RELIGIOUS  TRAINING.  135 

initially  during  the  week  can  point  out  wherein  they  fail 
to  live  up  to  their  Sunday's  lesson.  And  again  and 
most  important,  she  loves  them  tenderly,  and  from  love 
Hows  wisdom.  Usually  the  mother  gives  her  own  chil- 
dren a  love  far  beyond  that  given  by  anyone  else,  and 
this  deeper  love  sharpens  her  intellectual  faculties  and 
makes  her  both  a  keen  observer  and  a  good  tactician. 
Giving  her  children  some  simple  lesson  on  Sunday  aft- 
ernoon, she  finds  a  hundred  opportunities  to  make  the 
lesson  living  and  vital  to  them  during  the  succeeding 
week. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  child's  life,  the  mother  is 
usually  the  one  to  decide  whether  he  shall  attend 
Sunday  School  or  not,  but  as  he  approaches  adolescence 
he  is  likely  to  take  the  matter  in  his  own  hands,  and 
if  it  happens  that  some  revivalist  or  a  new  stirring 
preacher  comes  in  contact  with  his  life  at  this  time, 
he  is  very  likely  to  be  swept  off  his  feet  with  a  sudden 
zeal  of  religious  enthusiasm,  which  his  mother  fears 
to  check.  The  reports  of  memberships,  baptisms,  etc., 
show  that  a  large  number  become  converted  and  join 
the  church  during  adolescence.  While  this  does  not 
in  the  least  argue  that  the  conclusions  that  they  reach 
at  that  time  are  therefore  unsound — for  adolescence  is 
not  a  disease,  nor  a  form  of  insanity,  but  a  normal, 
if  excitable,  condition — still  it  does  prove,  when 
coupled  with  the  further  fact  that  in  adult  life  these 
young  converts  often  relapse  into  their  previous  con- 
dition, that  a  more  lastinig  basis  for  religion  must  be 


136  STUDY   OF  CHILD   LIFE. 

found  than  the  emotional  intensity  of  this  period  of  life. 
A  religion  to  be  lasting  must  be  coldly  reaffirmed  by 
the  intellect :  the  dictum  of  the  heart  alone  is  not  suf- 
ficient. Religious  enthusiasm,  like  all  other  forms 
of  enthusiasm,  tends  of  itself  to  bring  about  the  oppo- 
site condition,  and  to  be  succeeded  by  fits  of  despond- 
ency and  bitterness  as  intense  and  severe  as  the  en- 
thusiasm itself  was  brilliant  and  ecstatic.  The  history 
of  all  great  religious  leaders  amply  proves  this.  They 
had  their  bitter  hours  of  wrestling  with  the  powers  of 
darkness,  hours  which  almost  counter-balanced  the 
hours  of  uplift.  Only  clearly  thought-out  intellectual 
convictions  reinforced  by  the  habit  of  daily  righteous 
living-  can  secure  the  soul  against  such  emotional 
aberrations. 
Dan-er  of  Therefore,    although    the    religious      excitability    of 

Reaction  .    . 

adolescence  must  not  be  thwarted  lest  it  be  turned  into 
less  helpful  channels,  and  lest  religion  lose  all  the 
beauty  and  compelling  power  lent  to  it  by  the  glow  of 
youthful  feelings,  yet  it  must  be  so  balanced  and 
ordered  by  a  clear  reason,  and  especially  by  the  habit 
of  putting  each  enthusiasm  to  the  test  of  conduct,  that 
the  young  mind  may  remain  true  to  its  law  of  growth, 
developing  harmoniously  on  all  three  sides  at  once. 

The  danger  of  permitting  a  young  boy  or  girl  while 
tinder  the  influence  of  this  emotional  instability  to 
enter  into  any  special  form  of  religious  service  is  the 
danger  of  reaction.  TTe  will  discover  that  all  is  not 
as  his  early   vision   led  him  to  suppose — because  that 


Period 


RELIGIOUS  TRAINING.  U7 

early  vision  was  of  things  too  high  and  holy  for  any 
earthly  realization — and  he  may  turn  against  what 
seems  to  him  to  he  hypocrisy  and  pretense  with  a  bit- 
terness proportioned  to  his  former  love.  Many  honest, 
faithful  men  and  women  remain  in  this  state  of  re- 
action for  the  rest  of  their  lives. 

Nevertheless,  it  will  not  do  to  thwart  these  young      A  Difficult 

T>..r....l 

beginnings.  They  must  neither  be  nipped  in  the  bud 
nor  forced  to  a  premature  ripening.  Above  all  they 
must  not  be  suffered  to  endure  the  killing  frost  of 
ridicule.  The  period  is  a  difficult  one,  but,  as  Dr.  Stanley 
Hall  points  out,  it  is  supremely  the  mother's  oppor- 
tunity. If  she  can  hold  her  boy's  or  her  girl's  con- 
fidence now,  can  ease  their  eager  young  hearts  with 
an  intelligent  sympathy,  she  can  probably  keep  them 
from  any  public  commitment.  Perhaps  they  may 
desire  to  confide  in  the  minister ;  if  so,  let  the  mother 
confide  in  him  first.  Perhaps  they  have  bosom  friends, 
passing  through  the  same  stirring  experience ;  then  let 
the  mother  win  over  these   friends.  , 

Her  object  should  be  to  shelter  this  beautiful  senti- 
ment ;  to  keep  it  safe  from  exposure ;  above  all,  to 
utilize  it  as  a  motive-power — as  an  incentive  to  noble 
action.  The  Kindergarten  rule  is  a  good  one :  as 
quick  as  a  love  springs  in  a  child's  breast,  give  it 
something  to  do.  When  the  love  of  God  awakes 
there,  give  it  much  to  do.  Usually,  the  only  way  open 
is  to  join  the  church,  to  make  a  public  profession.  The 
wise  mother  will  see  to  it  that  there  arc  other  ways, 


138  STUDY   OF   CHILD  LIVE. 

urging  the  young  knight  to  serve  his  King  by  going 
forth  into  the  world  immediately  about  him  and  fight- 
ing against  all  forms  of  evil,  giving  him  a  practical, 
definite  quest.  The  result  of  such  restriction  of  public 
speech,  and  stimulation  of  private  deed,  will  be  a  sin- 
cere, lowly-minded  religion,  so  inwoven  with  the  truest 
activities  as  to  be  inseparable  from  them.  Such  a 
religion  knows  no  reaction. 

Bible  Now  is  supremely  the  time  fur  a  study  of  the  Bible. 

study  Interesting  as  a  Divine  Story  Book  to  the  young  chil- 
dren, it  becomes  the  Book  of  Life  to  these  older  ones. 
In  teaching  it  at  home,  a  few  simple  rules  need  to  be 
borne  in  mind.  The  first  is  that  the  Bible  must  be 
thought  of  not  as  a  series  of  disconnected  texts  and 
thoughts,  but  as  a  connected  whole:  The  division  of 
King  James'  Bible  into  verses  and  chapters  is  but 
poorly  adapted  to  this  purpose.  The  illogical,  strange 
character  of  the  paragraphing,  as  measured  by  the 
standards  of  modern  English,  is  apparent  at  a  glance, 
fur  often  a  verse  will  end  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence, 
and  the  sentence  be  concluded  in  the  next  verse.  The 
chapters  in  the  same  way  often  fail  to  finish  the  sub- 
ject with  which  they  deal,  and  sometimes  include  sev- 
eral subjects.  Therefore,  the  mother  who  undertakes 
to  read  the  Bible  to  her  children  needs  first  to  go 
through  the  lesson  herself,  and  to  decide  what  sub- 
ject, not  what  chapter,  she  will  take  up  that  day.  There 
is  a  reader's  edition  of  the  Bible,  and  one  called  the 
"Children's  Bible,"  both  of  which  aim  to  leave  out  all 


Bible 


RELIGIOUS  TRAINING.  139 

repetition     and    references   and   to   arrange    the    Bible      children 
narrative  in  a  simple,  consecutive  order,  nevertheless 
employing  the  beautiful   Bible   language.     These   edi- 
tions   might    prove   of    considerable    help    to    mothers 
who  feel  unequal  to  doing  the  work  by  themselves. 
( Second,    comparable    to    this    in    importance    is    the 
reading  of  the  Bible  and  talking  about  it  in  a  perfectly 
ordinary  tone  of  voice  ;  for  what  you  want  is  to  make 
the    Bible    teachings    live   in    to-day.     You    must    not, 
therefore,  suggest  by  your  tone  or  manner  that  they 
belong  to  another  day,  and  that  they  are,  in  some  sense, 
to  be  shut  out  from  common  life  and  speech.  This  does 
not   mean    such    common    use    of    Biblical   phrases    in 
everv   day  conversation  as   to  cause   it   to   grow   into 
that  form  of  irreverence  known  as  cant,  but  it  does 
mean  simple  usage  of  Bible  thought,  and  the  effort  to 
tit  it  to  the  conditions  of  daily  life.     Such  a  habit  in 
itself  will  force  any  family  to  discriminate  as  to  what 
things  in  the  Bible  are  living  and  eternal,  and  what 
things  belong  rightly  to  that  far  away  time  and  place 
of   which   the    Bible   narrative   treats,   thus   practicing 
both    teacher    and    pupils — that    is,    both    parents    and 
children — in  the  art  of  finding  the  universal  spirit  of 
truth  under  all  temporal  disguises.     Without  this  art 
the  Bible  is  a  closed  book,  even  to  the  closest  student. 
Again,  every  effort  should  be  made  to  help  the  home 
Bible   class   to   understand   the   period  studied   in   that      Real 
week's  lesson,  and  to  this  end  secular  literature  and 
art  should  be  freely  called  upon,  not  only  such  stories, 


Making 
Lessons 


Conclusion 


140  STUDY   OP   CHILD   LIVE. 

for  example,  as  "Ben  Hur,"  but  other  stories  not 
necessarily  religious,  which  deal  with  the  same  time 
and  place ;  they  are  of  great  help  in  putting  vividly 
before  the  children  and  parents  the  temporal  setting 
of  the  eternal  stories.  Cannon  Farrar's  "Life  of 
Christ"  is  a  very  great  help  to  the  realization  of  the 
New  Testament  scenes,  as  is  also  Tissot's  "Pictorial 
Life  of  Christ."  In  short  every  art  should  be  made  to 
deepen  and  clarify  the  conceptions  roused  by  the 
study  of  the  Bible. 


in  The  mother  who  undertakes  the  tremendous  task  of 

rightly  training  her  children,  will  need  to  exercise 
herself  daily  in  all  the  Christian  virtues — and  if  there 
are  any  Pagan  ones  not  included  under  faith,  hope, 
charity,  patience,  and  humility,  to  exercise  those  also. 
With  these  virtues  to  support  her,  she  will  be  able  to 
use  whatever  knowledge  she  may  acquire.  Without 
them  she  can  do  nothing. 


TEST    QUESTIONS. 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE 

PART  III 


Read  Carefully.  In  answering  these  questions  3rou  are 
earnestly  requested  not  to  answer  according-  to  the  text-book 
where  opinions  are  asked  for,  but  to  answer  according  to 
conviction.  In  all  cases  credit  will  be  given  for  thought  and 
original  observation.  Place  your  name  and  full  address  at 
the  head  of  the  paper;  use  your  own  words  so  that  your 
instructor  may  be  sure  that  you  understand  the  subject. 


1.  How  can  you  bring  the  influence  of  art  to  bear 

upon  your  child  ? 

2.  What  is  the  influence  of  music  ?     How  can  you 

employ  it  ? 

3.  Do  you  believe  in  fairy  tales  for  children  ?     State 

your  reasons. 

4.  How  would  you  encourage  the  love  of  nature  in 

your  child? 

5.  What  is  it  that  the  Kindergarten  can   do  better 

than  the  home? 

6.  Suppose    that    your   child    had    some    undesirable 

acquaintances,  how   would  you  meet  the  situa- 
tion ? 

7.  What  can   you   say  of  accomplishments  for  chil- 

dren ? 


STUDY  OF  CHILD  LIFE. 

8.  If  manual  training,  physical  culture,  domestic 
science,  etc.,  are  not  taught  in  your  schools  and 
you  wish  your  children  to  get  some  of  the  ad- 
vantages of  these  studies,  how  will  you  set 
about  it  ? 
().  What  do  you  understand  to  he  the  correlation  of 
studies  ? 

10.     Should  parents  become  acquainted  with  the  teach- 
ers of  their  children  and  their  methods?     Why? 

I  r.     How  may  children  he  taught  the  use  of  money? 

12.  State  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  Sunday 

schools.  What  have  they  meant  in  your  own 
experience  ? 

13.  How  will  you  train  your  child  religiously?     Can 

anyone  take  this  task  from  you  ? 

14.  What  rules  must  be  borne  in  mind  in  teaching  the 

Bible  at  home? 

15.  Give   some    experience   of   vour    own    (or    of    a 

friend )  in  the  training  of  a  child  wherein  a 
success  has  been  achieved. 

16.  Are  there  any  questions   you   would   like  to  ask 

or  subjects  which  you  wish  to  discuss  in  con- 
nection with  the  lessons  on  the  Study  of  Child 
Life  ? 


Note       \fter   completing   the    test    sign    it    with    vour    full 


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